It was love at first sight. I was smitten by The Boy Least Likely To as soon as their visual hit. A chronic doodler myself, I have a weak spot for the hand-drawn, kid-art look. They’ve got it in spades. Their musical deck is likewise stacked: simple, twee pop melodies sweetened further with candy-coated lyrics. Pop in its purest form. I’m a sucker for it! (Pun intended). There was one slight problem however. No full-length MP3s were available from the band, just a few nasty, embeded clips. Yuck. But this week the band announced their Christmas presents to the world: this MP3 of “Little Donkey” and a flash game of the same name.
You still need to hear more more songs from the band, so I’ll use this opportunity to announce the pre-pre-beta soft launch of 3hive’s guide to myspace. Few bands can resist the free hosting and instant networking myspace offers, nor should they. Too many times we come across artists who only make their music available on myspace, so we thought we ought to take a stab at whittling down the choices for you.
I recently bought 
Those of you already familiar with Early Man, “two Pentacostalists from Columbus,†might find it strange to hear them called “quaint.†But that’s what comes to my mind when when listening to the monster, and unapologetically analog, riffs blaring out of these digital speakers. The song names could have come from Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, or early Metallica records, and so could the angry guitar and manic drums. The whole thing takes me back to those Halcyon days when my skater friend got me off the Depeche Mode with an interventionist helping of Ride the Lightning. In fact, Early Man are so earnest about their music that listening to them really is infectious, even if they’re telling me to die a slow, horrible death.
Regular readers of 3hive know that, as silly as it sounds, we sometimes have problems figuring out the names of the bands we profile. Case in point: Is it Jason Anderson or Wolf Colonel? Greg says, “Who cares?” (Someone will, I’m sure, as I’m sure we’ll hear about it. For the record, I think it was the former and is now the latter.) He — Greg, that is — suggested Jason Anderson, and I’m okay with that, because the plaintive folk-pop of “O, Jac!” pairs nicely with the Michigan’s snowy forecast. Thanks, G!
Electronic, acoustic, classical, it all goes together to create beautiful music. Letting Up Despite Great Faults create music from the heart, ignoring formulas and expectations, letting their freedom and creativity flow. There are no great faults, and hopefully no letting up.