Young and Full of the Rock in Lexington
You've Got Your Friends, I've Got Mine (Eugene Records)
While Louisville might be the place in Kentucky to make a musical name for one's self, Lexington is just an hour away and anchored by a large university, surrounded with bars and venues. With 27,000 kids circulating the University of Kentucky, there just aren't enough frat parties and basketball games to keep our youth entertained.
The young'uns that comprise In Endeavors are doing their part to satisfy some of them with their spirited, Arctic Monkey-ish British-style garage rock. The group has been playing the local scene for the last few years, recruiting fans and with the help of their latest release, You've Got Your Friends, I've Got Mine. In Endeavors will have the chance to recruit a few more on their upcoming U.S. tour, which stops at this year's SXSW.
Repeated, choppy guitar riffs, funky, stuttering bass lines and speedy drums, like the ones of the album opener "The Moves" are characterized by the smirked vocals of singer, Gerren Reach, whose style picks from the dirtied vocal ways of the Arctic Monkeys and the Strokes.
High schoolers line the underage venues of Lexington to dance and sing songs like California-riffed and punkish "Day One" and their palm-muted, slang ridden "Private Eye."
"Are you really going out tonight/Are you willing to give me a try," In Endeavors sings after a "Twist and Shout"-style vocal build-up.
It will be interesting to see what In Endeavors can do with their first big tour and this new album.
Click over to www.myspace.com/ieiboys.