Renewing the Rentals

One of my favorite bands came to Detroit Saturday night. The Rentals is fronted by Weezer's first bass player, Matt Sharp and includes Rachel Haden who, along with her two twin sisters, comes from the womb of music itself. Matt is a strange person, seemed troubled by something on stage [or rather everyone else in the band was troubled by him] and took it out by moving around like he was being beat up by invisible assailants and serenading certain front row fans. But, he hung out and had fun with fans afterwards and signed my cd and my finger cast. Rachel is very very small, and when I told her about the Haden family Kevin Bacon-style game Zach and I made up she laughed really hard.


The new EP is great, and once I caught up on what Matt's been up to the past 8 years I understood the change in sound. After touring alone across the country playing folk music he realized how much he preferred the clean and peaceful sound of acoustic guitar. Now, the band has done away with the much of the brash wall-of-sound fuzz bass and replaced it with acoustic guitar strumming. The synthesizers still play a huge role, but they weren't loud enough at the show and it sounds like just one track of synth on the cd. I dug how full and Ladytron-esque they sounded on the old cds. On the whole the style has turned more poppy, which ended up being perfect for their lineup: three girls harmonizing in the upper register, a soft low male voice underneath, fun synth licks, and upbeat guitar strumming. All of their old songs were played in a sort of transitionary phase into this style. Despite the small amount of fuzz bass their songs remain occupied by enough other sounds and are still catchy as hell.