(myspace.com/2tonboa) - Two Ton Boa kicks off its fall 2006 U.S. tour this week amid praise from the press comparing the Olympia, WA quartet's songs to everything from the Dresden Dolls to PJ Harvey, Bikini Kill to Jesus Lizard, and the
Geraldine Fibbers' Carla Bozulich to NYC noise merchants Cop Shoot Cop. This apparent lack of consensus over just what comprises the bass-driven dark, heavy pop sound of Two Ton Boa's long-awaited Kill Rock Stars album Parasiticide underscores the group's compelling and unique songs. The quartet led by songwriter, bassist and classically-trained vocalist Sherry Fraser will kick off the tour with a rowdy record release party in the band's hometown.
Early reviews of Parasiticide run the gamut of comparisons and metaphors as writers grapple for words to describe its sound:
"Invites comparison to the Dresden Dolls, as both Fraser and the latter's Amanda Palmer make themselves out as tough outsider girls who broadcast intimate concerns through first-person songs." - ShakingThrough.net
"Parasiticide, just released on Kill Rock Stars, is the creepy cousin of Rid of Me-era PJ Harvey (thanks in no small part to producer John Congleton, a colleague of Steve Albini). But where Harvey draws blood with her nails and teeth, Fraser's touting a sledgehammer." - Portland Mercury
"Touches the same creepy, crypto-goth nerve as before-like a toybox of puppets and black plastic snakes rampaging down the Reeperbahn-then covers it with a skin of stretchy pop plastic. But songs like "Favorite Bloody Patient" and "Porcelain Throne" ...combine enough two-bassist clout with Sherry Fraser's powerful voice to make this odd pairing of Cop Shoot Cop and Concrete Blonde a bleak yet beguiling thrill." - Willamette Week
"It's a warning shot across heavy music's bow, a reminder that hard music isn't about massive riffs and blistering distortion and guitar tones. It's about poking and prodding the places where bad dreams lurk, anger and shame call the shots and the word 'comfortable' and all its synonyms have been taken out of the dictionary. Even after repeated listens, it's unclear whether Fraser and company come to the table to exorcise demons or create new ones with Parasiticide." - 4/5 Stars, Aversion.com
"Sounding like Carla Bozulich backed by the Jesus Lizard, Two Ton Boa has an impressive, if not entirely unique, sound. Bass and drums pound together, forming an appropriate background for Fraser's vocals... Parasiticide also features interesting arrangements and instrumentation. Reverb fills in spaces where guitar is sparse, and that also helps to invoke an eerie mood, especially when paired with the Medusa in a modern age cover art." - Delusions of Adequacy
Over the past six years, Two Ton Boa toured the country with acts like L7 and Blonde Redhead, and released a couple of compilation tracks and a seven-inch single. However, the band's rapt cult following of fans, artists and critics eagerly awaited new material to follow-up the mini-album. Finally, in early 2006, Fraser re-emerged from self-imposed exile and completed recording with the original line-up of bassist Brian Sparhawk (also of Fitz of Depression) and drummer Dan Rieser. Pianist/organist Scott Seckington (also of The Old Haunts) joined the band just prior to the new recording.
The soaring melodic thud of Two Ton Boa's grinding, dual-bass sound is Fraser's own invention. Classically trained on Oboe, English Horn, and assorted baroque recorders, she fell in love with the bass and composed over 50+ tapes of material on a four track. Overcoming a dread of exposure that kept her music hidden for years, she played her first show as Two Ton Boa while living in Olympia. WA. Art punk duo The Need were so impressed after watching her perform solo, they offered to be her live back up band and help her record a demo. Slim Moon at Kill Rock Stars quickly took Fraser's beast onboard. Fraser's gift of songwriting has enabled her to compose and arrange all musical parts for Two Ton Boa: basses, vocals, keyboards, banjolele, chord organ and more.
Parasiticide showcases the band's uniquely dark, heavy sound. Tracks like "Cash Machine", "Cyanide", "Gumshoe" and "HERarchy" are pop songs with jagged edges, while "Bad Seed", "Your Favorite Bloody Patient" and "Porcelain Throne" swell with passion and pain, burgeoning into sick flowering crescendos of sound.
Fraser culled the weighty name Two Ton Boa from a lyrical line in her signature song: "I wore your love like a two ton diamond boa / I liked you my pet, draped around my fragile neck." Her charmingly raw vocals are the heart and driving force behind Two Ton Boa. Fraser's gargantuan emotional range has been described as scary, sweet, raw, mysterious, funny, leering, defiant, and downright frightening - she has been declared as possessing one of the greatest vocal ranges in independent rock today.
Her "singular style of delivery is equal parts sensuality, bravado, and strength," writes Tiffany Lee Brown of Signum Press. "She slurs and cajoles her luscious vowels and consonants amidst a bludgeoning, double-bass carnival of sound."
Fraser's vocal expressiveness ranges from "cooing in a manner reminiscent of Portishead's Beth Gibbons to starkly asserting herself with intense, intimidating force," suggests Andrew Miller of Pitch Weekly. "When passionately performing her own material, Fraser approaches the summit of peaks previously scaled only by the incomparable PJ Harvey."
Two Ton Boa at its most powerful rhythmically crushes and melodically charms, devouring listeners through Fraser's engaging use of hypnotic melodic nets - vocal, lyrical, and instrumental - while other listeners are captured through her addictively catchy, playful craftiness. Ann Powers of the New York Times - another of Fraser's admirers among the press - succinctly writes in her selection of Two Ton Boa as number four in her Top Ten "Undeservedly Obscure" Albums of 2000, "the funhouse hasn't been this much fun in years."
Get ready. Fraser's funhouse is coming back to town.
Two Ton Boa On Tour:
10/04 Portland, OR Dante's
10/05 Arcata, CA Synapsis Theatre
10/06 SF, CA Hemlock Tavern w/ Thrones
10/07 Oakland, CA Uptown Bar w/ Thrones
10/08 Los Angeles, CA The Smell w/ Thrones
10/10 Phoenix, AZ Modified Arts
10/12 Austin, TX Red 7
10/13 Shreveport, LA Lil Joe's Tavern
10/14 New Orleans, LA Outer Banks Mid City
10/15 Birmingham, AL Bottletree w/ Tara Jane O'Neil
10/17 Nashville, TN 5 Spot
10/18 Athens, GA Caledonia Lounge
10/19 Atlanta, GA Lennys' Bar
10/20 Knoxville, TN Pilot Light w/ Asobi Seksu
10/21 Durham, NC TROIKA FESTIVAL w/ Asobi Seksu
10/22 Washington, DC American University
10/26 New York, NY Knitting Factory w/ 400 Blows
10/27 Long Branch, NJ Brighton Bar
10/28 Philadelphia, PA- North Star Bar
10/29 Pittsburgh, PA Garfield Artworks
10/31 Chicago, IL Empty Bottle
11/01 Milwaukee, WI Points East Pub
11/02 Minneapolis, MN Triple Rock
11/03 Lawrence, KS Jackpot
11/04 Denver, Co Hi-Dive
