Lee Bains caught my attention before I even saw him perform with his band, The Glory Fires. Maybe it was the name of the band but before I heard a note this band sounded as though they were the real deal.
“I saw a bill of four bands, none of which sounded anything alike and none of which sounded anything like anything that was extremely classifiable or popular or whatever at the time,” Bains says. “And that was kind of the moment for me when I began to quit thinking about music as belonging to a genre and thinking about music more in terms of its particular mission or more of a philosophical level… A lot of these bands that were really resonating with me seemed to have a solid vision at their core, and that’s what I wanted to do.”Bains’ honesty is apparent: in his unrestrained lives show, in his wary but boundless appreciation for the city and the region that built him. For music’s sake, let’s hope that his journey towards expressing that honesty is only beginning.
This devotion to a vision drives Bains and The Glory Fires’ music beyond the momentary exhilaration of any single live performance. Lyrically, Bains tackles tough history in the context of his own experiences, acknowledging the negative in a way that begs for another story to be told. “I know the new architecture’s largely depressing / and the politics are pretty regressive,” Bains sings in “The Weeds Downtown,” a Southern-fried rock gem from the band’s Sub Pop debut,”Dereconstructed”. “But ain’t shining a light on what’s dark / Kinda your thing?”
The Fat Angel Sings 