Whaddaya call a guy who hangs out with musicians? A drummer. Unless that guy happens to be Underoath's Aaron Gillespie.
Like Dave Grohl, the stickhandler's talents extend far beyond timekeeping. So like Grohl, he's decided to stand up and step out on his own. The result is the skillful and solid Southern Weather, the debut album from Gillespie's one-man-band project The Almost.
Underoath fans might not be shocked by Gillespie's sound, which naturally hews fairly close to the spiritual emo-rock of his day job, with all the requisite surging guitars and heartbroken lyrics and melancholy melodies and yearning, soaring vocals. But they should be pleasantly surprised at how deftly Gillespie handles virtually all those chores. And how he pushes the envelope -- combining the boom-chikka guitars of Johnny Cash with the crunching riffage of AC/DC and the shivery vocals of Conor Oberst on Say This Sooner, for instance, or expanding Amazing Grace into a full-blown power-ballad anthem.
There's another cut called I Mostly Copy Other People -- though the truth is Gillespie is clearly his own man. And like Grohl, he seems destined for solo greatness. No joke.
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