Favorite : Together In Contrast

Winter 2006...After playing shows around Chicago and St. Louis, and the success of '35', Favorite is poised to raise even more ears and eyebrows with the band's second album 'Together In Contrast'. As they assembled with Mark Rubel once again, there was a fantastic sense of what they knew they could acomplish, and the fun they would have being at Pogo Studios again. Taking a whole week to lay down numerous tracks (much more time than the three days of the '35' sessions), the band found new ways to achieve rich instrumentation and experiement with new sounds - all while still keeping the same sound that makes them the band they are. Taking more time with the songs this go around, Favorite took the tracks to a mixer to make sense of their instrumental rantings and ravings. And he delivered - Rick Barnes of Rax Trax Studios in Chicago has taken the tracks recorded at Pogo, and with the band's guidence and approval, made the songs shine with their continuity and clarity. The disc contains a few of the straight-up rock tunes that Favorite is accustomed to - the tracks 'Ones and Twos', 'Silence You Speak' and 'Savior' all take the blasting sound of their earlier rock songs and combine it with substantial harmonies, full guitars and bass, and richly mixed, piercing drums. 'Together In Contrast' also finds the band learning more about instrumentation on 'The Bullet Home', 'Codes for Contra' and 'The Drink', combining over 20 tracks per song and experimenting with new instruments like organs and pianos, de-tuned and reversed guitars, glockenshpiels, and expanded percussion. But the spacey softer side of Favorite is still prevelent in 'Hillside Shadows', a song full of interesting tones and potent lyrics that take the listener to another world and back again. And the balads 'Canvas' and 'From Hell to Hollywood' both find the band exploring slower times and sweet guitars to take their friends on trips to the nicer side of things. Throughout its 11 songs, 'Together In Contrast' shows Govi expanding on his complicated and varied rythms, Andy and Steve artfully combining guitar sounds and harmonies with a sense of song and purpose, and Jeremy holding everything together with his potent yet skillfull meshing basslines. Each member of Favorite has found his own style on this record - Steve in his Sunny Day Real Estate guitars and strong powerful vocals, Govi in his Appleseed Cast-ish drum beats and his math rock time changes, Jeremy in his Hum style basslines and sense of harmonic expansion, and Andy in his Copeland style pop guitars and sincere vocals and harmonies. Favorite has always combined their different influences in a mesh that forms a strange continuity and fullness. All of their contrasting styles come together to form the musical world they live in. Just like the real world, and all the opposing forces in it, we all realize that we are the same at the core in spite of our differences. In our hearts we hold the same music and sense of purpose, and thats what makes things exciting - for this record, for this band, and for the world around us- being together in contrast.

Full title is: Together in Contrast