p The Appearance (TA) are a post-punk band out of southern California who claim influences from a wide range of genres, 80 rsquo;s Metal (Guns N rsquo; Roses, Metallica, AC/DC, etc.) to Southern California skater punk (NO/FX, Strung Out, Pennywise) to SKA. TA rsquo;s line-up -- Alan Oakes (frontman), Chad Kulengosky (lead guitar), Justin McCarthy (drums) and Jason Nelson (bass) ndash; have been working together for a year and in that year they have created a fun, energetic, polished, post-punk/alt.

rock sound with hooky guitar riffs, and powerful melodious lyrics. /p p Not the typical frontman, Alan is a soft spoken, intelligent shy guy who likes to spend time playing role-play games online. His sensitivity helps him to focus on his songwriting and enables him to understand and convey, in his lyrics, great passion, empathy, regret and loss.

Personally he has a very sly sense of humour and once you pull him out of his shell a little, he is a very outgoing and engaging person. During our chat we talked about his romantic life, music, touring in Britain with the Dead Presidents and his secret man-crush on Rick Springfield. And he let me call him Rick.

/p We rsquo;re calling you Rick because of Rick Springfield, right? You are a closet Rick Springfield fan? Well, out of the closet now.

/b /p p I want to be the next Rick Springfield. /p p It rsquo;s coming up on a little over a year actually. Our (former) drummer i (Jon Brucher) /i ended up getting married.

He got engaged, to his long-term girlfriend, and he has own little business and he was like, I rsquo;m just going to concentrate on that. He got married two or three weeks ago. And so he did that.

/p really for me, I want to go back to school thing. It happens. I rsquo;ve seen it happen so many times because they rsquo;re like my girlfriend, she rsquo;s not really into it.

Or I have school and it rsquo;s really hard to balance the two. You really have to devote 100% to music. For a long time you really don rsquo;t see any money; so you make your sacrifices.

It doesn rsquo;t work out for everybody. /p p Yeah. And the new guys Jason and Justin we rsquo;ve known them for years.

I rsquo;ve actually played in other projects with Justin so hellip; /p p Well, Bryan Lee was approached by Michael Narlinger who said, Hey, would you ever like to start a group? I have a little extra cash I would like to invest in a band. Do you know anybody?

And Bryan was like, well I know Alan. And he heard that I wasn rsquo;t really playing with anyone at the time so he gave me a call and said, You know, do you want to start something no promises, just kind of see where it goes. We rsquo;ll get together and write a few songs.

We have a guy who, if he likes it, he rsquo;ll put some money into a demo. /p p So we did that. Him (Bryan) and I got together and just started writing a few tunes and then called the drummer (Jon Brucher) to play.

Then we cut a demo, and Mike really liked the demo he was like, If you guys could write a whole albums worth I rsquo;d really like to put out a record. /p p And so, from there we were just like well, we need another guitar player and somebody recommended Chad (Chad Kulengosky, lead guitar). This guy called him and he showed up and right off the bat we all loved him.

And he just started writing, and all four of us sat down for nine months and wrote a record. It was really strange because we didn rsquo;t really say, Okay, this is what we rsquo;re going to do. We just kept goin rsquo; and goin rsquo;.

We didn rsquo;t really expect anything out of it. /p p No, no, actually we had a demo which we never released. It was just basically for Mike, just so he could get a taste of what we were writing and the music that we were playing.

We wrote the record and we didn rsquo;t really want to release any of the music, for an EP or anything like that. /p p I do write the lyrics. With the songs it kind of goes either way.

I do a lot of my own writing. So every once in awhile hellip; I have a handful of songs on the record that I wrote on my own, that I brought to the band they were kind of like, Yeah, we love it let rsquo;s use it. /p p And a lot of the other songs are stuff that we collaborated musically, then I just go and write lyrics and melodies.

I don rsquo;t really go into a record saying, You know what, I am going to write this record myself or we are all going to write this record together. There are moments where we collaborate there are moments when I just kind of write it on my own, and bring it to the band and see what they think. /p If you would like to listen to a few tracks from The Appearances debut album i Lost In Aurora /i you can hear it at their a href= http://www.

myspace.com/theappearance MySpace /a space. br/ A.

L. Harper p a href= http://andrewosenga.com/ Andrew Osenga /a is a singer/songwriter living in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife and two beautiful baby daughters.

Not only is he a dedicated family man, Andrew is also an immensely talented musician and producer. /p p He was the frontman for a href= http://www.thenormals.

com/ The Normals /a until they split in 2003 -- due to financial and familial obligations -- he is an active member of the folk-rock band a href= http://www.myspace.com/caedmonscall Caedmon s Call /a , a founding member of the a href= http://www.

squarepegalliance.com/ Square Peg Alliance /a , and a very busy producer for other bands. So with all this in his life it makes a person wonder where he gets the time to write, record and produce his solo albums ndash; His third solo album i The Morning /i is currently on sale.

/p p Andrew rsquo;s unique sound is a fusion of folk, indie, country and roots-rock blended with power-pop. The intelligent, impassioned lyrics run the gamut from passionately breathless to sweetly romantic and regret-filled melancholy; this sound defies genre placement. Andrew rsquo;s tangled tapestry of sound and lyric paints an ardent, stirring picture of this deep, multifaceted and truly talented young man.

/p p img style= float: left; margin-right: 10px src= http://farm1.static.flickr.

com/135/393102464_511a914c87_m.jpg border= 1 alt= Looking for a beer title= Looking for a beer width= 175 height= 117 / His newest album, simply titled i The Morning /i , is split into two sections, ldquo;Morning rdquo; and ldquo;Evening rdquo;. Both show the different sides of Andrew rsquo;s complicated inner self, reflecting his passionate, sometimes angry, sometimes impassioned joy on ldquo;Morning rdquo; and his darker, deeper, more sensitive side on ldquo;Evening rdquo;.

Andrew rsquo;s values, his love for his wife, children and life in general resonate throughout; but despite the depth of the emotion portrayed on the i The Morning /i it maintains a playful, energetic, rock-music flavour. /p p Andrew recently sat down with me for a chat, during which we talked about his daughters, his charity work with orphans in India, religion, a href= http://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica i Battlestar Galactica /i /a and, of course, his music. /p p I kind of like to tell a story you know. And I read a lot so I always kind of like to follow that.

So there rsquo;s that. I really like short stories. I rsquo;m a big a href= http://en.

wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingway Hemingway /a fan. I rsquo;ve written a bunch of songs based on characters in Hemingway novels.

/p p Yeah, ldquo;Marilyn rdquo; on i The Morning /i is from the a href= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_Also_Rises i Sun Also Rises /i /a .

It rsquo;s sort of about this guy, who falls in love with this girl, and she kind of plays him. She toys with a bunch of men. And at the end of the day they rsquo;re all miserable.

It just kind of caught me. I changed her name to Marilyn. There is a line about bullfights in Spain and a sleeping train.

/p p Yeah I do. Math and Science, the things that I should have been interested in I did terrible in at school. I loved stories, that rsquo;s how I learned.

That rsquo;s what I liked to listen to. My favourites songwriters were, you know, Billy Joel. Guys that tell stories.

Paul Simon. Those guys are just hellip; I rsquo;m inspired by what they do. /p p b Your family and friends are very important to you aren rsquo;t they?

You have even set up the a href= http://www.squarepegalliance.com/ Square Peg Alliance /a to help support each other in your art.

Tell me more about that. /b /p p Yeah, it rsquo;s a group of people that were all making music for a long time. A lot of us were friends first before we heard each other.

We have all been making music for a while now. We all care about each other and think what each other does is great. It rsquo;s kind of a way to help each other out.

It rsquo;s been really fun. We put a name to something that was already there. Created opportunities for us to do it more.

/p p I kinda don rsquo;t care. My serious end goal for me is to do what I am doing now. Where I make music in a community with people that I love.

And whether it rsquo;s shows with my band, or with my old band, or friends with a few guitars or just making records. /p p At the end of the day I get to make music with people that love me and care about me and that I love and care about. Hopefully at some point some record company sign us and we rsquo;ll all make some money.

So it won rsquo;t be so hand to mouth as it is now. But that rsquo;s the only thing I want. I want to make more money doing what I rsquo;m doing so I can support my family.

/p p Some say The Slides are the next big Brit-pop sound; some say they aren rsquo;t -- but isn rsquo;t that always the way? With the charming, jangling, swirling sounds of a a href= http://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Hammond_organ Hammond /a , effects pedals, and recurrently strummed guitars, The Slides bring a gently psychedelic atmosphere to their brand of retro chic Brit-pop. This London based foursome are the next British invasion force. br / br / Frontman Rod Da Rosa (lead vocals, lead guitar) and Matt Brana-Martin (bass) started playing together at Uni in Nottingham, England and the length of time these two have worked together, off and on, may be one reason The Slides sound is so complete.

Rounding out their line-up is Ian Compton (Hammond organ/harmonica) and newest member, Colin Oldfield (drums). Da Rosa rsquo;s smouldering, melancholy, raw vocals combined with their unique a href= http://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/The_Doors The Doors /a meet a href= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereophonics The Stereophonics /a meet a href= http://en.

wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Charlatans_(British_band) The Charlatans /a sound is so sexy smooth that you just know these guys are seriously talented. br / br / img style= border: 1px solid gray; margin: 10px; float: right src= http://farm1.

static.flickr.com/153/388229259_a87c9ffeb0_m.

jpg alt= Rod Da Rosa title= Rod Da Rosa width= 175 height= 119 / And now they have found their way through the pack and set themselves apart. Recently signed to new indie label Red Grape Records (formerly MVine) they released their debut ldquo;mini rdquo; album i Slow Bullet /i and are currently working on the finishing touches to their first full length album (to be named and released later this year). Frontman Da Rosa agreed to have a quick chat with me recently about The Slides sound and future.

br / br / b Where does your unique sound come from? /b br / br / Yeah, well I think in terms of our sound and us as a band, there is a melting pot really of the four of us. Each four of us, funnily enough, have all different influences which sometimes makes for an argument because people bring a different thing to the table.

They rsquo;ve got their own influences and ideas how things should sound or feel. br / br / b So how long have you guys known each other? Where you friends before you were in a band together?

/b br / br / The bass player and I were together in Nottingham. I was actually originally the drummer in the band. And when the singer left we wanted someone who looked the part, could sing, write songs and it was just impossible to find.

So I stood up and said ldquo;I rsquo;ll do it, no problem rdquo;, and had the job a week later. That rsquo;s how it all kind of got started. So we have been together for a few years.

We rsquo;ve been together for three years hellip; I think. br / br / b As The Slides? /b br / br / Yeah, pretty much so, but not this line-up as such.

br / br / b How long has this line-up been together? /b b br / /b /p p b img style= border: 1px solid gray; margin: 10px; float: left src= http://farm1.static.

flickr.com/141/388229255_d1d4ee1be1_m.jpg alt= The Slides title= The Slides width= 150 height= 124 / /b Well, this line-up, exactly since September.

So probably about six months really. We had to get a new drummer. br / br / b What are your influences?

/b br / br / The kind of influences we have all kind of overlap. They are all very British, I have to say, there aren rsquo;t many American or German influences in our music. So if there is any overlapping consistency it rsquo;s British.

We rsquo;re very British in our sound. br / br / b I take it that this very British sound is intentional. /b br / br / Not really, I think it rsquo;s just the way we were brought up, especially for me.

I listened to The Who, David Bowie the Jam, all these sort of bands. It rsquo;s partly because of my brother, who is ten years older than me. Those are the sounds that were coming out of his bedroom when I was about seven or eight.

At that sort of age you can be heavily influenced by your elders, as such. It certainly stuck with me. br / br / b You are about to release your first album.

/b br / br / Yes, this will be our first full album. We did do an EP ( i Slow Bullet /i ) which is called a mini-album ndash; I don rsquo;t know why ndash; but, um, yeah. br / br / b How do you write your songs?

Is it as a group or just you? /b br / br / It depends. I write 99% of the lyrics.

But some of them come from something we do as a group someone has an idea, or from a bass line or whatever. I wrote ldquo;Slow Bullet rdquo;. In fact it was written for somebody else.

We rsquo;re a joint effort, we rsquo;re a band, you know. Matt has written a couple of songs for the new album. br / br / b So what are you hoping for when the new album is released?

/b br / br / img style= border: 1px solid gray; margin: 10px; float: left src= http://farm1.static.flickr.

com/146/388229265_86eb91f771_m.jpg border= 3 alt= The Slides Live title= The Slides Live width= 150 height= 108 / To push it as far I can, to be honest. It is what it is, people will have different opinions about the album of course, that rsquo;s out of my hands.

I just want to push the music as far as it will go. Play the best we can play. Create a little magic in people rsquo;s lives.

To me there is nothing better than picking an old song from, oh I don rsquo;t know, fifteen years ago, that takes you straight back to a mad party where you were wrecked (UK-ism for very drunk). Or a special moment at a festival with somebody, this song was playing. Me, personally, I would like that song to be our song.

Just every now and again to leave a bit of yourself behind. br / br / br / If you would like to listen to The Slides unique brand of retro chic Brit-pop you can hear them at their a href= http://www.myspace.

com/theslidesuk MySpace /a page. br / /p div id= authorbio a href= http://www.flickr.

com/photos/39594322@N00/355339191/ title= Photo Sharing img src= http://farm1.static.flickr.

com/138/355339191_4d0a2d1e6b_t.jpg width= 75 height= 75 alt= A.L.

Harper style= float:left;margin-right:5px;border:2px solid #000 / /a A.L. Harper is an American lost in the history and passion of living in Scotland.

She enjoys motorbikes, music, art and wanking. She is Blogcritics Assistant Music Editor and runs the a href= http://blogcritics.org/archives/features/band_of_the_week.

php Band of the Week /a feature, where we profile a different indie (unsigned/inde label) band every week ( a href= MailTo:a.l.harper@blogcritics.

org contact /a her for more information). She is also the Reviews Editor for a href= http://www.allthingsgirl.

com/index.shtml AllThingsGirl.com /a and a freelance writer for hire.

p There are times, I rsquo;ll admit, when modern music leaves me wandering around aimlessly, with my arms to the sky as I shout out in frustration that there are no more ldquo;good rock bands rdquo; on the radio. Of course, we won rsquo;t mention the fact that my teenaged years were in the eighties, which makes Motley Crue the rock band I listened to the most. Nope, that rsquo;s irrelevant to the point so far as I rsquo;m liable to bend all reality in such a way as to skew it to fit my preconceived notions!

Reality shmeality! br / br / Usually, I rsquo;ll find new bands and new music through happenstance or the rare suggestion of a friend. Sure, that means that I generally miss out on about 99.

99% of any and all of the newer bands that might actually be worth listening to hellip; but when you have a policy in place, there rsquo;s no real reason to rock the boat and start stepping outside of the box. It rsquo;s warm and cozy in the box, people. br / br / Whatever whimsical notion and assortment of circumstances that brought me to become a part of the Blogcritics family, however, has shaken up my musical world.

In short, it rsquo;s shaken up my box. Generally, I hate it when people shake up my box. br / br / Blogcritics has allowed me, is the point that I am very laboriously making, to experience music and discover bands and sounds that I might not otherwise have heard.

Today rsquo;s case in point is a small band from Jersey, named Of Fate And Chance. img src= http://farm1.static.

flickr.com/133/381595606_28cfce1fce_m.jpg border= 3 alt= A Liar s Monologue title= A Liar s Monologue width= 150 height= 150 align= left / Of Fate And Chance, comprised of Sean Massaro, Ryan Bergamotto and Jon Fleck, are a small band of relatively young guys that have decided to take a relatively huge step on the path to their future, by releasing their new EP i A Liar rsquo;s Monologue /i , independently.

br / /p p It rsquo;s that fact that got me babbling on and on about how I rarely find myself faced with exciting new music. Here was a situation and a band that I would never otherwise have heard of, were it not for my new found friends and family here at Blogcritics. And that would be a shame, because this is a damn good EP.

br / br / ldquo;Thulcandra rsquo;s Illness: Silence rdquo; kicks everything off by not really kicking anything at all. It rsquo;s slow, it rsquo;s ponderous, and it lulls you into following this sedate groove that loops and swirls upon itself. Only thirteen seconds shy of 2-minutes in length, it is a nice and unique way to begin your relationship with this EP.

br / br / You can rsquo;t demand to hear the roar of the crowd after a home-run, until you rsquo;ve settled into your seat and find yourself surrounded by the ambient sounds of the ballpark. Okay, wait. That may be the lamest comparison I rsquo;ve ever made hellip; but I like it!

br / br / ldquo;Artwork Dancing rdquo; finds OFAC taking that mellow mood set up by the opening track and then promptly blasting it into outer space with a wonderfully up-tempo groove. If silence is the sickness that infests Thulcandra, then this song sets out to rip apart the clouds and demand that the sun shine down on everyone rsquo;s smiling faces and dancing feet. It is one of my favorite songs on the EP, no question.

br / br / ldquo;A Liar rsquo;s Monologue rdquo; stutters out of the starting gate with this great interplay between the back-beat rhythm and the guitar rsquo;s insistent groove. Eventually, the song erupts into the chorus, only to plunge right back down into another shift in the groove. Funky, simple, and just plain happy to make the acquaintance of your ears, it isn rsquo;t hard to see why this was chosen as the title track.

Love this song. br / br / ldquo;Moonstrung Intoxication rdquo; b /b is pretty much the song that signalled to me the fact that this was going to be a cd that I would enjoy. If an album can hold my interest through the first three or four songs, then I know it rsquo;ll be worth making my way through until the final track.

Too many albums these days are loaded with two decent tracks at the beginning of the album only to be followed by a chain of mediocre songs that could of (and should have) been improved upon. br / br / Not here, though. This song has a great little guitar riff that rides along the very capable back-beat of the drums, only to find itself draped with some very lovely vocal work from the guys.

br / br / As a matter of fact, I rsquo;ll say that for all the tracks, really. Not only does OFAC rsquo;s musicianship work well together, but so do their voices. It rsquo;s nice to hear a band that can play and sing at the same time.

br / br / ldquo;Photo Not-Graphing Emotions, rdquo; aside from being one of the more tongue-twisting song titles that I rsquo;ve happened upon in a while, also happens to be a damn decent song. Buoyed by some really nice work by the bass and lead guitars, the song just rockets along and leaves you at panting at the end and wanting more. br / br / ldquo;Welcome Back To Unconsciousness, rdquo; while a good song, is maybe not quite so tight and righteous as the others that come before it.

Then again, when I sit and listen to it again (and again) mdash; I realize that I wouldn rsquo;t be doing that, if there weren rsquo;t something interesting about the track. Notice; I rsquo;m not saying this isn rsquo;t a good song, only that I rsquo;d give it about a 7/10 as opposed to the 9/10s that I rsquo;d probably give the other tracks. br / br / I rsquo;ve had to listen to bands that I WISH would have had something worthy of me labelling as a 7/10!

br / br / ldquo;The Hollywood Charity rdquo; brings me back in absolute rock and roll happiness, as it soars on the wings of some wonderful drum work. Ye gods can this kid play! How he rsquo;s not panting on the floor in a sweaty wreck after playing this song, I have no idea.

Probably my 3rd favorite song on the album. br / br / ldquo;Coordinates rdquo; announces itself, and the end of the EP, with a thunderous bass-line groove. After that, it really doesn rsquo;t rsquo; look back, as it climbs and drives itself into a very nice little rhythm.

I rsquo;ve gotten to know and love this song, as it is the one that lets me know that it is time to hit ldquo;repeat rdquo; and start the album all over again. Love it. br / br / I guess what I rsquo;m trying to say in my usual subtle way (i.

e. babbling incoherently and mixing in phrases such as ldquo;it rocks! rdquo; or ldquo;it RULEZ!

rdquo; in every paragraph or so) is that OFAC have given me what I didn rsquo;t even know I wanted mdash; what I needed. br / br / A new and talented band that I can now have the pleasure of watching grow and mature; a band that has enough talent to survive the current trend of pimping a band for one (maybe two) albums, only to cast them aside as they look for the next new thing. br / br / OFAC have a bright future ahead of them, I think.

Especially if they continue to record and release music as mature and well-written as the material on A Liar rsquo;s Monologue. My hopes for them are that they get the chance to put these songs (or others) on a major label d e but in the future. br / br / And, of course, that I get to review it!

/p p Of Fate And Chance are currently allowing purchase of A Liar s Monologue on their a href= http://myspace.com/offateandchance myspace page /a for both U.S.

A and international orders. They re also selling a fairly rockin band t-shirt that I wish I were slim enough to be able to fit into, as well. Darn it!

/p p When the opportunity first arose to review Of Fate And Chance rsquo;s (OFAC) new EP entitled i A Liar rsquo;s Monologue /i , I rsquo;m not quite sure what led me to volunteer, but I rsquo;m glad I did. br / br / Comprised of only eight tracks, the music and obvious musicianship that it took to bring i A Liar rsquo;s Monologue /i into existence led me to want to know more about the band itself. One thing eventually led to another and I found myself eventually contacting the band and asking if they wouldn rsquo;t mind answering some of the questions that were buzzing around in my head.

br / br / When all was said and done I found myself just as thankful for getting to know a little more about the guys in OFAC, as I was to have been able to experience and enjoy the music that they rsquo;ve created together. br / br / In hopes of allowing even more people to join me up here on the OFAC bandwagon, here rsquo;s my questions and Ryan Bergamotto (bass, backing vocals) answers: /p p b Where did the name Of Fate And Chance come from? Does it signify anything?

/b br / br / Fate and chance are two opposites. Fate is having your future already set out by a higher power. It is the belief that you don rsquo;t have control over whatever happens in the future.

Chance is the belief that anything can happen, that you are in control of your life and what happens in the future. br / br / When we were under a different band name called Partial Credit about 5 years ago, we really wanted to change it to something more meaningful. Ironically, Of Fate and Chance was one of the first names we came up with, however, we still wanted to take more time to think of the perfect band name.

i br / br / /i After about 4 months of brainstorming, we decided on Of Fate and Chance because it characterized us pretty well. Fate and chance is what life is about, but it depends all no what you want to believe. br / br / br / b Who are the members of OFAC?

/b br / br / Sean Massaro, Ryan Bergamotto and Jon Fleck br / br / b When did everyone meet everyone? When did you guys decide to form a band together? /b br / br / Wow, it s basically our life story.

br / br / Sean and I have been friends all our lives (no exaggeration). Our dads were already friends before we were born and were next door neighbors. So we grew up next door to each other.

In second grade I moved to Tewksbury Township, New Jersey and about three years after that so did Sean. br / br / In seventh grade Sean became friends with Jon because of their interest in skating. Soon he found out he played drums and so we all decided to just jam out for fun.

After a few times of messing around we all decided to actually make it a dedicated band. We are currently in our second year of college and we ve been together ever since with no lineup changes. br / br / b What was the first song you guys played together?

Was it an original? Was it a cover song? /b br / br / Our first song we ever did together was The Kids Aren t Alright By The Offspring.

We actually had a recording of it and listened to it a few months ago, it was tight, but damn was Sean s voice funny. br / br / b What was the first song you guys wrote together? /b br / br / The first song we ever wrote together was a cheesy hard rock song about some girl we all didn t like.

Ah, seventh grade angst. br / br / b Do you remember how it felt to see a song go from an idea into a song that you could sit back and listen to? /b br / br / If you mean about the first song we ever wrote, we just kind of laughed at it since it was supposed to be a joke.

br / br / However, if you mean about the songs we ve been doing now, than it feels amazing. I come up with most of the ideas for the songs so I have a picture in my head what the song will sound like and it s weird because it doesn t always sound how you think it will. br / br / Even though some songs didn t come out how I planned, I ve never been disappointed with the turnout of the songs.

But overall, it s amazing to see the pieces of ideas form into something you can listen to. br / br / b How long did it take you to come up with the songs that make up your EP i A Liar s Monologue /i ? br / /b br / We used to take forever writing songs, but lately we ve learned to write songs one after the other.

To actually calculate the specific days that we worked on the songs and put them all together, I d say about two and a half months br / br / b Why did you guys decide to roll with that song as the title track of the EP? /b br / br / I ve written all of the lyrics for the songs on i A Liar s Monologue /i . It isn t exactly a concept album, But the lyrics are my confessions, ideas and expressions.

The subject of most of the songs are my expressions of love for my girlfriend, but they are also so much more than that. br / br / I try to generalize certain ideas of love. For instance In Artwork Dancing , it is about meeting Jennifer, my girlfriend, for the first time and how amazing I felt, but I also talk about how I feel that everyone was born to be with someone else, that everyone has that special someone, but it is all a matter of finding them.

br / br / I don t believe that people who have never married were not meant to find love, but that maybe they never met the one who was made for them. Overall, I am the liar, and these songs are me speaking, hence they are my monologues and so the album s lyrics all together are my monologue. br / br / b When did you guys come to the decision that you might want to take this to a level where you found yourselves in a studio and actually recording your songs?

/b br / br / We have been a band for quite some time now, so we do have many other old songs. But then we started writing songs like Artwork Dancing and Moonstrung Intoxication and we just loved them more than anything we ever wrote. So, we decided to write at least another two songs and record a demo to give out to people.

These were songs we wanted everyone to hear, we wanted to touch people in a certain way. br / br / After a few months, we felt we needed to release something a bit more professional, so we began writing again around August of 2006 and then recorded those later finally releasing the EP in December of 2006. br / br / b Getting into the studio hellip; what was that like?

Intimidating? Exciting? /b br / br / Before we went into a real studio, we had a lot of experience recording ourselves.

However, it was really exciting, I m probably the only one who was a little bit nervous. The place we went to record was really professional, but was still really laid back. br / br / b Okay.

Let s talk about the songs that made it onto the EP for a minute. Some of them have unique titles, and I wondered how you arrived at them. For instance, the opening track Thulcandra s Illness Silence, Artwork Dancing or my personal favorite Photo-Not-Graphing Emotions mdash; do they mean anything other than simply being cool-sounding titles?

How do you guys come up with song titles? /b br / br / We obviously want to have titles that sound cool, but most importantly I wanted to make titles that played on words and were different from most out there in the world. br / br / The first track has a lot to do with a book I read by C.

S. Lewis called i Out of The Silent Planet /i . It was more than a story, it had a lot of philosophical ideas.

In the book, Thulcandra is the true name for Earth. It also meant the silent planet. The reason why we were known as the silent planet is because of our lack of guidance of good and evil, because there is not much belief in a higher power.

So, we all go around fighting each other and killing each other because we don t have guidance. Hence we are silenced from guidance and so silence is Earth s illness. br / br / Artwork Dancing , like I said before it was mostly about meeting my girlfriend for the first time, and when we hung out.

There was this time where we all (there was another guy and girl with us) started dancing in the parking lot which was really funny, but memorable. I always see her as a piece of artwork and so in the song she is artwork dancing. br / br / Moonstrung Intoxication means an intoxication strung by the moon.

Of course this isn t literal, I use metaphors and symbols all of the time in my writings. What this means is that I used to see my girlfriend only at night and I always loved seeing her, it made me feel amazing. So, if you put all of the pieces together, figuratively I would get a euphoric feeling at night when seeing her.

br / br / Your favorite title is one of the biggest play on words I ve done. I was pretty happy with the results. If you take out the not the title becomes photographing emotions.

What I did was split up the words into photo-graphing-emotions. The only thing is one cannot tell how someone is feeling in a photograph. We always are told to smile for a picture, and you might be feeling like garbage.

But it also means you cannot tell how someone is feeling just by looking at them, you have to talk with them and ask them. Therefore, photos do not graph emotions. And with that you get Photo-Not-Graphing Emotions.

br / br / b Once the EP was finished and you were able to drop a copy into a stereo and press play, what did you think? Did it turn out the way you thought it would? Did the music sound as good on the disc as it does in your imagination?

br / /b br / We felt so enthused by the results. It exceeded our expectations and we couldn t wait to show it to everyone. When we listened to the songs on a stereo, we got a certain feeling, a certain emotion.

That emotion was exactly what we were aiming for when writing these songs. We wanted the recording to capture that emotion and feed it to the listener and it definitely captured it. i br / /i br / b What are you hoping to get across to people through your music?

If you could have one moment to talk to someone as they are about to listen to your EP, what would it be? /b /p p We want people to be touched by our songs. However, that is not something you can force onto someone, but we feel that we could do that.

Mainly, we would just thank people for taking the time to listen to us with an open mind. /p p At the end of this, now that you have had a chance to get to know OFAC a little better, I think their closing statement gives you the entire reason for my wanting these guys to be featured as a Band of the Week, here on Blogcritics. br / br / It is one thing to be a young band making good music, but it is totally another to be making music from the heart that is able to reach out from your stereo and make you wish you were able to drop everything and go on a road trip just to see that band play their songs live.

br / br / In a few days my review of their EP A Liar rsquo;s Monologue will be posted, and if even a handful of people find themselves wanting to get to know these guys better through their music when I rsquo;m done, then I will consider the favor returned. br / br / After all, they did the favor of giving me a piece of their lives and their hopes, in the shape of a shiny silver CD and in the words of this interview.