Waking Ashland "Edinger" from Composure Live at The Journey Music Madison, WI May 2, 2006 PODCAST EXCLUSIVE!

When we went to see the Box Social last week, they were the first of four bands opening for Waking Ashland. I downloaded their LP last year and, while they have a couple of decent songs, I immediately slotted them somewhere in between Plans-style Death Cab and Keane on the wuss-mo spectrum. The set pretty much bore that out, I think. Their piano-playing singer was really, you know, emoting so much, and their sort of vague lyrics just kind of floated by. It's kind of ironic that I'd avoided shows at the Journey so far because I'd assumed most of them were filled with covert Christian mall-punk bands, but maybe I should've been avoiding them for the fourth-generation Travis knock-offs. It's not that Waking Ashland is bad, they're just not doing anything interesting or original, and when you don't break the formula your big successes are going to be few and far between.