Blue Horns

[November 12th, 2008]

[POST-JANGLE] Almost every question I have for Blue Horns is interrupted by joyous shouts from the regulars at Southeast Portland’s Holman’s Bar and Grill, and hollers from the band itself. That’s what I get for scheduling our interview for 7 pm on Election Night.

“Our sets are always super-short,” guitarist/songwriter Brian Park says during a short lull, the 28-year-old’s eyes barely visible behind long, stringy hair restrained with a headband. “We only like to play for half an hour. Even if we’re really great, it should just make people more excited to see us next time.”

There should be many more next times for the group—Park, guitarist Colin Howard, drummer Brian Kramer and bassist Andrew Stern—whose self-titled debut is out this week. The album (recorded in two days last spring at Justin Higgins’ Old Standard studio) is full of catchy, throwback rock; at eight songs and just over 30 minutes, it’s sequenced like the vintage LPs the band reveres.

Most of the album is composed of skittering, incessant foot-stompers; the kind of songs that sound good on first listen but five times better after frequent spins and a few beers. Taking cues from early-’80s post-punk and jangle pop, Blue Horns is the rare guitar band that can actually get a Portland crowd to dance.

Part of that is due to Park’s unusual vocals. His wobbly, nervous chanting is a mix between Wilderness’ James Johnson and a rabid dog. His lyrics are declarations—“This is all we have,” or “Let’s go hunting”—and the band’s sturdy, intricate dual-guitar attack, coupled with the shuffling rhythm section, continually pushes tracks forward before they come to sudden, abrupt halts.

“There’s always a point like two minutes into [a song] where you’ve heard pretty much the whole song, and then it carries on for another five minutes with two breakdowns and it never ends,” Howard says, looking up from his drink at the increasingly favorable election results. “That’s what we try not to do.”