APRIL 2008 ONLINE EDITORIALS
The Informants - Stiletto Angel
By Nate Harper
The term “dance music” is too often used despairingly, if only because most of today’s music for movin’ and shakin’ is monotonous and horrendously insipid. Given the rather dire state of dance music today it’s tough to remember back to a time when even using such a term would be redundant – what other reason would people possibly be making music for?
Denver’s The Informants are such a band – a throwback to the swinging rock and roll of the 40s and 50s, a time when a sax solo in the middle of a rock song didn’t mean you were ska, and people didn’t have to be afraid to have fun at shows.
On “Stiletto Angel,” the band’s first full length, the group sounds like they’ve been playing together for longer than their 2006 debut would belie. The band’s lineup of veteran musicians come together to produce songs that are both easy and fun. The mood never gets too serious, which is good because the entire album is centered on the joy one experiences from letting go and having a good time.
On tracks like Stuck On You and Let’s Roll the band shows their skill for writing tight, upbeat rock numbers with catchy hooks that could lure even the clumsiest dancer to the floor.
The slower songs do well to showcase vocalist Kerry Pastine’s big, bold voice. On tracks like Tears of Heartache and I’ll Never Know, Pastine burns and soars, her voice taking center stage to sell her anguish with total sincerity. Throughout the entire record, but especially on the burners, the rhythm section shows off their chops, hammering the beat into place, even if the song is not a boogie.
If the band has a passion for anything other than shaking their respective groove-thing, it’s doing it with a cocktail in hand. This is well lubed music all around, and that apparently includes the listeners too – when not encouraging you to throw back a shot or three, Pastine, the titular Stiletto Angel, is enjoying a bottle from a bucket of longnecks or sneaking a drink by the jukebox. The record conjures up a drive most people usually only find in Vegas, when after staying out all night drinking and dancing they’re lured back, maybe even against their will, by a beat for another night of it, knowing real life will always be waiting when the world stops spinning.