THE CHAMBERMAIDS – Down In the Berries

Listening to The Chambermaids’ album Down In the Berries is a strange experience for anyone who was a kid when the Athens sound had yet to change the face of alternative music, back in the day when MTV’s 120 Minutes was the show you stayed up late to watch Sunday night, not caring how tired you’d be in class the next day.

There is certainly something distinctive about The Chambermaids’ sound, but it had me rifling through stacks of old LPs like the back of a kitchen cupboard. If you were hosting an early ‘80s dance party you could totally slip Down In the Berries in with anything by Pylon or My Bloody Valentine and no one would be the wiser. Or they’d be somewhat the wiser — a guest might ask you which Love Tractor album was playing because, “I thought I had all their stuff.”

But enough with Georgian comparisons. The ‘maids are from the Twin Cities, and while one of the best cuts on “Down” is titled “1982,” these guys have only been doing their thing since 2003. I mean, this is a great band that doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry yet.

What they do have is an early-alt innocence. A straight-up drummer who hasn’t heard of carpel tunnel and is going to snap the snare as hard as he likes. An at-the-precipice-of-feedback lead guitar grind. The lead singer sounds a teensy bit like Ian McCulloch, but the rest of the band doesn’t mimic The Bunnymen. They keep it simple and tight. The bassist Martha keeps everything on a fixed rate of assent, a hypnotic thrumming akin to Mike Mills’ early REM stuff. Apologies for the continued Athens comparison, but it’s hard to escape.

This is no cover band, though, and the music being made is not pastiche. It’s definitely worth a listen, and a careful and hopeful eye for what comes next for this act.

(Modern Radio Record Label, PO Box 8886, Minneapolis, MN 55408)