Run Gazelle Run are a hard act to define. Their blend of electric-acoustic, singer-songwriter, progressive rock has been well documented on their self-titled debut album. Run Gazelle Run recorded their debut at The New England Institute Of Art recording studio in Brookline, Massachusetts. It is fortunate the band found such support because what they have to offer is truly impressive and unique.
“Kablam” opens the disc with an interesting amalgamation of electric and acoustic guitars and a mandolin. It’s just a rush of thickly woven melody that you cannot ignore. Singer and rhythm guitarist Tim Ahern leads the band with his wiry vocals through several sections of driving music along complex progressions. It is a sound hard to compare to what anybody else is doing. Run Gazelle Run might have influences like Dave Matthews Band, The Grateful Dead, and Rush, but even that doesn’t come close to telling the whole story. Right out of the box Ahern is belty, erupting with vocals that intensify the musical drama going on around him.
The band continue a tendency to fire off strings of mandolin notes to sweeten their run of driven energy. Ahern controls the pace by unleashing bursts of vocal assertions. That mandolin rocks in the hands of Ben Ruddock who includes it on every song when he’s not playing the keyboards. The mandolin doesn’t make the band sound like some bands might sound, too sweet or too lost in another time period. It becomes another hard rocking progressive instrument that gives this band another edgy dimension in their sound and it separates them from the pack of copycat bands out there.
“When It Stops” offers stabbing chunks of electric guitar, bass, and drums as the song races along an unusual and speedy progression. Lead guitarist Ezra Landis unleashes a mean, wiry, unwieldy melodic phrase that cannot be easily duplicated by another player. The energy level here makes you want to engage in intense athletic activity because it’s as complex as it is exciting. I can see it being used in an energy drink commercial as kids as doing stunts at a skateboard park.
Ahern belts his way into the electric-acoustic insanity of “Madmen.” It certainly catches the listener off guard, in a good way, when Run Gazelle Run slip into a humming chorus before Ahern returns to a clipped, rapid vocal delivery over that well managed mandolin. College students should be eating up this new sound. It’s intelligent rock and roll that despite its complexity never loses its edge and always remains run to listen to. Run Gazelle Run just might be the Rush of their generation: ambitious and complex but still accessible to the masses. Drummer Owen Landis gets into a primitive tribal thing near the end and you can picture the students at their frat parties holding up their mugs in a sign of respect.
The band‘s instrumental piece “Fughette” swaggers in with a catchy groove from the rhythm section. It’s steady authoritative beat makes you think of film scores during a busy interaction or montage on the big screen. Drummer Landis and bassist Walker Landis are practically a band onto themselves with all that they conjure here. Ahern comes in cooing his way through the ending section and adds another layer of crazy, fun, progressive rock.
“Happy Ending” begins with the band pressing out gentle electric guitar over a smooth intricate bass line beside subtle tasteful cymbal work. It sets the tone for the next section of thin brittle lead guitar lines that build into something larger than their individual notes. Ahern’s swaggering rhythm guitar makes this a catchy treat as he belts out his vocal lines in carefully measured bursts. This is probably the first prog rock band to feature such a fearless, belty rock singer at the front. Throaty expressions keep Run Gazelle Run firmly rooted in rock and roll territory even though they rock right out in their own special way. Lead guitarist Ezra Landis closes out the song with a wildly loose edge.
“Monsoon” is narrated by venerated recorded storyteller Odds Bodkin. Bodkin’s spoken word piece sounds at once simple and majestic over a thumping waft of drum injections and it’s a great intro the rangy instrumentation that comes in between his bit of storytelling apparatus.
“Nightsong” opens with a wide sweeping guitar sound and relaxes into a light breeze of guitar tones resonating casually over a subtle rhythm section and organ glide. Even when Run Gazelle Run slow it down, these boys still keep it gripping, almost hypnotic with what they’re doing with their electrics. You can get carefree and lost while listening as they meander through a different sounds cape.
“Reminder” slaps out plenty of acoustic guitar over a carefully bumpy bass guitar line. Compressed into one fetching sound are electric and acoustic guitars conjuring carefree, chirpy melodies while Ahern, in his most amicable timbre, emotes joyfully over the weave. Each instrument and voice on this one are so distinct and strong that the song feels like it has a bunch of different personalities in a small room and they’re all getting along just fine, socializing, to a low key party vibe. It’s uncanny how well Run Gazelle Run achieve this blend of instrumentation technically and colorfully.
Closing out with the sweetly appealing “Thanks For Listening” Run Gazelle Run make the most of Ruddock’s melodic mandolin tweaks. The boys play it low key here and the leave their fans with several reasons to check them out live and to wait for their next disc to possibly catapult them to greater heights of recognition. They deserve for their hard work, intelligent music, and for never boring their fans with complexity for its own sake.