Grither: The First Man On The Sun

There's no real shortage of Midwestern bands that base their music on dynamics—soft and hard, heavy and light, intense and moody. Lawrence, Kansas, and Kansas City seem to serve as dual epicenters for the hammer-and-swoon explosion that has spawned Paw, Molly McGuire and countless others, while Lawrence gets to claim credit for the latest talked-about scene participant, Grither. The band's full-length debut, The First Man On The Sun, has all the harmonies and spleen-purging emotion of its countless peers: You can feel the subtleties woven into the thunderous guitar punch, just the way you can on albums like Molly McGuire's fine new Lime. That's Grither's curse as well as its gift, however, because while this is a capable debut—"Sink" is especially effective—there isn't too much here that can't be found on numerous comparable albums.