Antarctica

New answers "Starts here." Sorry, never heard of them, just had to get that in.

you just gave me an idea for a thread!

GWAR come from Antarctica!

calling ned to thread...

Antarctica are charming to me in a way similar to a few other bands (Camera Obscura, Champagne Kiss, Cerberus Shoal): they never reached a perfect synthesis of their influences, but the results are still endearing because of how earnest they sound. Eric Richter has a good voice, and you can hear aspects of his old band Christie Front Drive. They never fell far from the stones thrown by New Order and the Cure, but they fill a nice little niche somewhere between rock and synthpop.

"Full Crescent Crusade," from EP 23:03, is close to being one of my favorite songs, and definitely one of the best songs I've ever heard that could be targeted as 'emo.' The full-length, 81:03, is more spotty. If they'd just removed one of the ambient songs on the second disc, they could have fit the whole album onto one CD. I guess the whole double-album debut had an ambitious appeal to them, though, and it makes for a great soundtrack while driving. It's actually pretty similar in outcome to Appleseed Cast's double- album "Low Level Owl," though with less attention to psychedelic delay effects and more of an emphasis on moody synthesizer washes.