Company Car

This is just the kind of testosterone-driven racket that can remind a 21st century man where his balls are. Artfully constructed, but rarely pretentious, Collars comes on like a confused and slightly drunk 19-year-old with a good heart and something to prove. Dave Parker’s voice is an endearing combination of Caleb Followill and Ozzy, but the band behind him stops, starts, rumbles and crashes in such as way as to drive one to assume that the depths of his motivations are seated in influences...

Straight-forward indie rock from San Francisco with influences like Fugazi apparent. Noisy pop harmonies cascade alongside the post-emo harsh guitar distortions. Vocally Company Car hits on all cylinders, often finding a perfect groove—somewhere between Hey Mercedes (an admitted influence) and Jimmy Eat World. I guess what I liked most was that I felt my body moving within a song or two and I really felt that I was feeling it—I know that sounds like wishy washy annoying music critic crap...

The band's press materials call them "loud indie rock," which is outstandingly understated for a self-assigned genre. The band's immediate influences (Fugazi, At the Drive in, Sunny Day Real Estate) come out from the beginning, and as you listen deeper into the songs, complex melodies, harmonies and instrumental parts emerge to craft a finely thought-out mix. As these elements come together, their later influences show their faces - Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Radiohead...

The San Francisco-based quartet of alternative rockers Company Car have recently debuted their first full-length album. Titled Collars, it’s a collection of 10 songs with humble beginnings of soft melodies instantaneously halted with the explosive roaring of guitar riffs and vigorous drum rhythms. With Dave Parker and Albert Chough at the guitar accompanied by bandmates Noah Heldfond and Frank Martell respectively at the bass and drums, Company Car has the appeal of producing a high-energy...

"Company Car's songs don't sound like tiresome philosophy lectures, even if the bandmates can discuss who kicks more ass, Alexander Pope or John Locke. Rather, the San Francisco quartet makes a thunderous noize that churns faster than an Amish kid on trucker speed, harkening back to groups like Fugazi, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Braid. We're talking about players who are equally attuned to the worlds of metal and classical, with just enough pop in their veins."