Crime in Choir

Official site
MySpace (listen to "Hot Slant," "In Search of Plunder" [both from 2004's The Hoop]. Also, download "The Hollow Crown," from the new record.)

Hometown: San Francisco
Next local show: 10/19, 12 Galaxies
Upcoming release: Trumpery Metier, 2006

[This post originally published 8/22/06.]

Ahhh...beautiful. Instrumental prog-rock. Crime in Choir play it as well as anyone you're likely to hear -- anywhere. NASCENT got its hands on the band's upcoming 10/31 release, and it's a doozy: a cinematic, technical, aggressive, utterly imaginative and flawlessly performed doozy. Trumpery Metier is the band's third full-length in six years and first with Gold Standard Laboratories. (more >>)

On the surface, Crime in Choir may seem like just one in a gang of instrumental prog/post-rock groups in San Francisco. The passive observer may struggle to avoid pat comparisons to local standouts like Continental, the Ebb and Flow, the Rum Diary, and Audio Out Send. But that's a big mistake. The new album, which improves upon an already strong formula, contains not a dull moment -- a certain accomplishment in the genre, achieved through creativity that knows no limits. Drawing heavily on math-rock and avant-garde jazz, Crime in Choir deftly violate the already broad boundaries of instrumental prog- and post-rock. And they do it with an energy that is instantly contagious. Grand, baroque, and utterly pretentious: we fuckin' love it.

INCESTUOUS A-LIST LINE-UP:
-Famed Hella drummer Zach Hill co-founded and just recently departed from Crime in Choir.
-New drummer Tim Soete also plays in the equally rad Fucking Champs.
-Pianist/keyboardist Kenny Hopper, the other CiC co-founder, also co-founded At The Drive-In.
-CiC Guitarist Jarrett Wrenn was another founding member of At The Drive-In.
-Fucking Champs guitarist and local studio maven Tim Green produced Trumpery Metier.