Appleseed Cast Drops in at The Space

The Space in Hamden is really trying to make a name for itself by booking a band like the Appleseed Cast to fill it’s quant interior on what would normally be a boring Friday night in mid-April.

While the Appleseed Cast isn’t the first big name in the indie-rock realm to make a stop in the Hamden, Conn. hole in the wall, hell this isn’t even their first show here (they played nearly two years ago with New Jersey-based Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start to a packed house), but they remain to be a favorite of local booking mastermind “Manic” Mark Nussbaum.

Every time Appleseed Cast makes their return to Connecticut, they always remind listeners how heavy and intricate a guitar-forward post-rock band can sounds, especially after listening to their usual batch of opening acts that then to be stereotypical indie-rock acts that bring little more than long hair and skinny jeans to the stage (Sorry, An Horse and Moving Mountains, prove me wrong if you can).

Coming off an amazing well accepted album in Sagarmatha, the Appleseed Cast now have to prove their worth live, which shouldn’t be too difficult because the majority of their new tracks are heavy on the instrumentals and light on the lyrics.

"At first, we were just planning on doing an instrumental EP," says guitarist Chris Crisci. "I don't know why we wanted to do that, but that was in our head. Then, as we were working on it, we realized that it should be a full-length album. We still wanted to keep it pretty much instrumental, but there were some parts where it felt like it could benefit from some vocal lines and lyrics, so it developed that way.”

This new equation for Appleseed Cast’s music works well for the ever-changing lineup that has seen the band go through nearly a dozen members in the 10 years of existence. Right now the band is Chris Crisci and Aaron Pillar and the group that walks up on stage on April 17th in Hamden is yet to be determined. At it’s best, the band has 4 members on stage and that group created the most intense 45 minutes of music and welded so well it felt like hours when listening to it.

Aaron Pillar explains the band’s situation by saying, “Mark [Young] decided to go back to school. And he was getting older, and saw maybe what, you know—something we had talked about for years was, “I want to know where I’m at, I want to have a degree, I want to have something that I could have,” and I think he saw that the direction me and Chris were feeling about writing and then my music, it was going to be another couple years of being in the same boat. We talked for a long time, and it was just like—I’ve dabbled with the decision. It’s a hard decision to make.”

Sagarmatha recreates that oh so familiar sense when being played from front to back as loud as your speakers can handle, the only acceptable way to listen to the Appleseed Cast. This band needs to be played loud and to be honest, playing their tunes are medium volume serves them no justice at all.

Written words can only describe the Appleseed Cast to a certain extent before you just have to listen to them for yourself. 12 bucks is a fare price to pay to haved your thought of “emo” music changed forever and possibly your outlook on music in general. Oh, and don’t forget your earplugs, this is will prove to be your loudest concert ever.