Super XX Man & Eric Metronome
HOME: Volume II (Post-Parlo)
Post-Parlo is into its second volume of an ambitious series of split EPs with such tantalizing pairings as Britt Daniel and Bright Eyes, Les Savy Fav and …Trail of Dead, and Knife in the Water and Paul Newman, slated for gradual release over the course of the year. Label man Ben Dickey has started more modestly on this volume, pairing Scott Garred of Silver Scooter with Eric Metronome of Columbus, Ohio, popsters Tiara. Garred and Metronome became friends over the course of two national tours together, and jumped at the opportunity to commit to album a batch of songs they’d recorded together in Columbus last June. The comfort level shows on this hand-numbered, limited edition, 10-song EP, which lives up to its title in every sense of the word. Garred has a warm, homespun delivery that feels cozy as a favorite sweater, and it gives his tracks (roughly half on them) a comfortable ground floor for his ruminations on fragility and mortality. Metronome has a more overtly emotive delivery, at times reminiscent of a less bipolar version of Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst, and it serves as a suitable garnish when harmonizing with Garred. The affair comes to a priceless conclusion with Garred’s gentle take on “Clay Pigeons” by Austin’s oft-covered underground hero Blaze Foley. Though Garred’s voice lacks the ruff-hewn worldliness of Foley’s, the version works as a poignant monologue of self-pity and self-affirmation. (Saturday, March 17, Blind Pig Pub, midnight)
This article appears in March 16 • 2001.