Bishop AllenBishop Allen are like a 40 degree day. They are the neighborhood bar that isn’t necessarily your scene, but sure is close to your house. They are that kid your friend always invites to parties who doesn’t seem to add much to a situation, but doesn’t take away anything either. Bishop Allen are just totally fine. No more, no less. You’d never be moved to say anything necessarily bad about the band or their performance Friday night at the Black Cat. But you’d never be moved to say much else, either.
There are certainly things to pick apart – both in praise and critique. The two founding members, Justin Rice and Christian Rudder, are certainly talented musicians. Rice has a strong and good voice that he does interesting things with. The band has been in the practice of picking up supporting players to fill out their touring needs as they go – a practice that doesn’t seem to be paying any dividends of late. All of the vocals sounded similar to the ones on their latest album, Grrr…, though, so we’ll assume that this is at least a semi-permanent line-up. Which is unfortunate. The accompanying guitarist and xylophone player roles could have been performed as effectively (if not more so) by these guys. Neither added a damn thing. In fact, the xylophone player spent far more time swaying and smiling than she did actually playing any instruments.
