Biography
Evangelical: Characterized by ardent or crusading enthusiasm; zealous.
Sometimes Webster's says it best. There's joyousness, righteousness, an undeniable enthusiasm that just oozes from So Gone, the debut album from Norman, Oklahoma's Evangelicals. Formed just over a year ago, this youthful trio bursts with a vitality too rare in modern music. With an almost total disregard for tradition, Evangelicals have an uninhibited approach to making music that sounds spawned not from some scene or gaggle of influences, but a place that's otherworldly and totally of the moment. Recorded using various four track machines and broken-down computers, So Gone sometimes sounds like a happy accident of sounds and songs, a collision of melody and atonality, a battle between tunefulness and dissonance.
So, what does a band called Evangelicals sound like? There's not an easy answer -- there is no neatly carved out sub-genre for this one. Are there pop hooks? You better believe it. Are Evangelicals a pop band? Not really. With all these strange sounds would you call it psychedelic? Once again, lets consult a dictionary: Of, characterized by, or generating hallucinations, distortions of perception, altered states of awareness, and occasionally states resembling psychosis. Yes, it's undoubtedly psychedelic, but a phony '60s throwback this is not. Would you call it glam? It's confident, exuberant and flamboyant. Does that make it glam? We think so.
Who are Evangelicals? Josh Jones (ex-student body president/homecoming king, age 24), Kyle Davis (straight-A professional writing student, Oklahoma University, age 21) and Austin Stephens (drummer extraordinaire who has been playing in local bands since he learned to crawl, age 26) are all native Oklahomans. In fact, Austin and Josh have known each other for upwards of a decade, attending middle school in Norman together. Originally the brainchild of Josh Jones (and much of the original tracking of So Gone was Jones on his own), Evangelicals quickly evolved into a full-time band. In just one year time they have managed to play more than 40 shows and record So Gone and a healthy chunk of a follow-up album.
So Gone is undeniable. It's overly caffeinated, bursting at the seams, and ultimately it demands to be heard. There's a persistence, an unrestrained, driving, force-of-nature quality to the album that could somehow only have come from a town like Norman, OK. Made in an insular world, one that comes without the infestation of media, without the buzz of the music industry, So Gone brings us new sounds for a new day. Hallelujah.
