midchester

"midchester will surprise you. That’s a fact for a start. They have toured Austria & Germany, released a 4 Track EP and a promotional live DVD, produced some great videos, been on radio, been on TV - shortly, made a name of themselves. Sounds easy? Try doing it without a label and without a single penny. And in the pre- MySpace-aera, by the way. That’s impressive, I would say. But this is not the reason why midchester are a band worth paying attention to. The surprise will catch you from a different angle. You will find yourself listening to their album or watching them performing and asking yourself why it took you so long to discover this band. Because midchester are by no means your common „yet-another-local-Indie-Rock-band“. The name might give away what music the boys grew up with and their place of residence would surely make them „a Vienna local“. And even these facts are not completely right, but nevermind. They will give you the finest rocksound. What you will feel at that particular moment is the „Yeeeah!“. Shake, move, flip, rock. The „Yeeeah!“ will be there. Every song is based on finest songwriting and excellent playing. The guitar playing by Paul is touching perfection, which only enables Stuard with his soulful power-voice to add another bit of that „feeelin" (rock’n’rolling obligatory, of course). But then comes the icing on the cake or actually the ground of their sound by the drumming of Max and Niki's Bass playing. When we were all underage, I remember hearing in the streets of Klagenfurt „how talented Max and Niki are“. Years later I find these two here - playing in midchester. So what is this band about? Where does the story start, I am wondering. The story could start with two guys meeting in a small town, sharing a fag and discovering the same passion for the Manchester sounds. Consequently, picking up guitars, learning how to play and years later deciding to dedicate their lives to music. Or it can only really start years later (in 2000, to be precise) when they run into another two guys with a somewhat similar story and start creating something that will in 2005 blow my mind when I first see them performing in Vienna’s Chelsea, at one of their last gigs before taking a break. But the story actually starts only now. Right now. Their debut album is finally out and the songs on this album leave no room for cluelessness. The songs have matured and developed their own life and soul. Not surprising if you keep in mind that since the year 2000 this band has played numerous gigs in Austria and Germany. Take „Ride“, for example. It’s catchy guitar tune is still there, but now it is served with a portion of knowledge where the road leads. Or „Leave You“ where the irony gets an additional grin. But that the band has grown up is especially true when they lay the heavy guitars down and go low, like in the song „Not Me Not Mine”. Consequently, the timing of the album is not a coincidence. The band has waited for the moment to be able to say with confidence “this is the midchester sound, this is the midchester world”. The older songs are arranged with more details, the new ones are a preview to what is yet to come. They all have their own edges and corners, and put together make perfect sense. So the circle closes. The present took the good bits from the past and the future is bright. The time for midchester ‘s sound from the underground is now."