If you want to talk about bands I'm behind in writing about, look no further than Brooklyn's She Keeps Bees. I discovered the band after attending a house show in Baltimore on July 16th of last summer. That night, I had gone to see This Frontier Needs Heroes, but I left absolutely struck by She Keeps Bees. In the intimacy of that small basement, singer/guitarist Jessica Larrabee and drummer Andy LaPlant played blues-tinged garage rock with a quiet charisma. Armed with just a stratocaster, small tube amplifier, and a drum kit, She Keeps Bees moved from gritty rock 'n' roll to hushed, ruminative folk, using the hypnotic power of Larrabee's voice and the chill of silence to engage the audience. Larrabee sipped from a bottle of whiskey throughout the band's set and sang like a cross between Chan Marshall, Erika Wennerstrom, and Janis Joplin; her voice filled with a soulful, Southern spirit as she sang eyes closed, from the roots of her heart and soul. There was a bare-bones honesty in the band's simplistic arrangements and sound that was hard to turn away from; it was vulnerable yet capable of such visceral moments.
Check out "Saturn Return" from the band's new album, Dig On, after the hop.
