Churchill–A Band to Watch

When I went last Friday to check out The Rouge in concert at the Marquis Theater in Denver, I found an inspiration–but it wasn’t from The Rouge.

The surprise of the evening was the opening act, a newer band simply called “Churchill.” To tell you the truth, at first, they seemed the most unlikely candidates to win over an indie rock crowd. The four guys and two girls opened their set with “Please come my way, Lord/Please come my way”, in gospelly four-part harmony underlaid only with a bass/snare drumbeat.

Huh? I thought I was at a rock concert, I thought. This looks and sounds like something from my old youth group. But that impression only lasted a moment. From there, they launched into an innovative jazzy sound that still sounded a bit gospelly-bluegrassy, but very, very cool. And things only got better from there.

It’s really hard to describe Churchill’s overall sound; in fact, I spent most of their set trying to figure out how to categorize them. How do you classify a drum-and-bass combo that is decidedly rock, overlaid with mandolin, cello, a little bit of keyboard and acoustic guitar? Was it bluegrass, folk, alt-rock, or what? All I know is–it worked. It worked well. And I wasn’t the only one there who thought so. They won over the gathering crowd in a way I’ve rarely seen a warm-up act accomplish.

I had a brief conversation with Tim Bruns, the band’s guitarist and one of the lead vocalists, after the set. His description of their sound, while still leaving us scratching our heads, actually makes the most sense. He told us they started with guitar and mandolin, and a bluegrass sound; and as they added musicians, the sound evolved into something more akin to rock…”but we didn’t want to get rid of the mandolin.” The result, as he describes it, is a band that plays rock music on acoustic instruments. That definition is still a little simplistic, but it’s a fair description nonetheless.

Based on hearing this one performance, and their freshly-released EP–I’d say Churchill’s strongest asset at the moment is that they have an incredibly solid drum/bass combination. These two instruments form the backbone of pretty much any modern band, and the strength of these pieces (or lack thereof) can make or break a band. That said–this band has one of the strongest backbones of any new band I’ve ever heard, and it gives them a great foundation to build on.

Another thing they have going for them is their songwriting. The tunes are memorable, great melodies, great lyric. I know a song is good when it stays in my head. Their stuff stayed there for days.

Their weak spot–at least that evening–was the vocals. Where the drums/bass were on the mark, the vocals drifted a bit. I say this guardedly because their vocals were much stronger on the EP–so I know they are capable. For whatever reason, it didn’t always translate into their live performance. Whether that’s a consistent issue can’t be determined until I see them play again.

And I would definitely go see them again.

If you’re following this blog (thank you if you are), you probably can already tell that good music excites me. So does real potential. I see in Churchill, not a band who has arrived–but a band that is certainly on their way. They have the raw materials, the oomph, to take them places–the potential to really become something special.

Churchill is a band to watch–and I’m going to look forward to watching how things go for them.

OOMPH scale: 7.5

Churchill: “I Still Remember”
Churchill: “Please Come My Way”

Buy Churchill’s EP on