No. 46 The Airborne Toxic Event

This five-piece indie rock band is from a district of Los Angeles called Los Feliz. The band is named after a chapter in the book “White Noise” by Don Delillo in which a large chemical spill from a rail car releases a toxic cloud over a city. With a name like that, I thought they would have more of an experimental sound, however it's pretty straight indie rock. Many of the tracks have an epic feeling where the song hits a great climax; it reminds me of Arcade Fire in a way.

The lead singer Mikel Jollett is a writer who has freelanced for NPR, L.A.Times, and Filter magazine. In 2006, instead of writing a novel for a year, he just kept writing songs and decided to start a band. The band's only album, which is self-titled, has some catchy tunes like "missy" and "gasoline" along with some more drawn-out songs with heavy violins from classically trained violinist Anna Bulbrook like "Sometime around Midnight." The band wraps up with bassist Noah Harmon (who holds a jazz degree in upright bass performance), former punk drummer Daren Taylor, and one of Jollett's old friends, guitarist Steven Chen.

Most reviews of the album recieved a good 7 or 8 out of 10. Of course Pitchfork gave it a whopping 1.6 out of 10. This may scare some of you from giving them a listen. Please don't, Pitchfork has been screwing bands since the beginning of time. Seriously 1.6? The band does enjoy creating music videos; they offer quite a few on their myspace page. Check out the acoustic version of "gasoline", "missy", and "innocence." Below is their impressive performance on Letterman. They play on Sunday 2:30 to 3:30 at Lollapalooza.

Official Page
MySpace Page