BAND YOU SHOULD KNOW: FREE ENERGY

By: Maria Ciezak
For BiggerThanBeyonce.Com

Check out the pleasant, fun, power punk-pop known as Free Energy. The quintet from Philly are on my bands to watch list, with similarities ranging from Thin Lizzy to Steely Dan. It’s almost as if 2010 met 1970, mated, and banged out a few good hits. Ok, so “glam-pop” patterns of any group nowadays aren’t precisely going to come off as pioneering or innovative, but their influences are not their only source of appeal. Songs like Bang Pop and Dream City ride you to a place with the top down, picking up a cheap keg for the backyard, in times when people drank cheap beer, just cuz it was, well, cheap. While other songs like Young Hearts and Wild Winds describe what they’re all about: good vibrations.

Front men Paul Sprangers and Scott Wells describe their music as “a physical dosage of happiness and good vibes.” Sometimes I am fearful of praise tarnishing the anticipation of a fresh group, but I can’t hold it in! I first heard about these guys in Spin Magazine, for I’m an artist to watch column kind of girl, and I never turned back. Debut album Stuck on Nothing has me stuck on something; a modern taste on classic rock. A pop-like frame of mind winning over the cock-rock aura doesn’t always fairly match, but the boys have a knowledge of real music well beyond their young years. It’s compacted with hand clapping, cowbells, and vocals, while concurrently wielding the modern garage-pop sensibility of bands like Jimmy Eat World and Sum 41. The boys played SXSW (South By South West) Musical Festival this year, which is a huge honor for upcoming artists.

Free Energy’s contagious passion and general intensity of talent has me yearning to see them on the road this summer, for I’ve heard nothing but rave. Check out this live performance, grab a beverage, pull up a stool, and enjoy some great music. Their energy is forceful exertion, and it goes to show that sometimes the best things in life are Free.