Band of the Week - A Classic Education

A Classic Education have the honour of being named Pull Yourself Together's first ever band of the week, and boy do they deserve it. We had the luck to accidentally see them at Indietracks, playing on the Church Stage. This venue turned out to be the perfect venue for this Bologna based dose of epicindiepop. Think Modest Mouse, think Arcade Fire, think Decemberists. The thing that A Classic Education have in common with all of these bands is a commitment to fantastically orchestrated music, there is nothing which doesn't fit in these tracks. Drums build both in terms of tempo and direction; violin lines rise, battles, scratch and fill your head with grandiose ideas; guitars glisten whilst slightly introspective whilst utterly compelling vocals round off the emphatic passion which flows through this band.

The band formed around Christmas 2006 and swiftly set about recording their first wave of tracks in the mountains of centre-north Italy. These first three tracks make up the majority of their first release, the imaginatively titled First EP. The two stand out tracks from this release are the orchestral Stay, Son (on the player above) and the poignant Wartimes. However, that is not to suggest that Stay, Son isn't as lyrically demanding. A running theme through the clutch of songs is the fact that the lyrics contain a somewhat dark, almost ominous, theme - forcing the listener to sit back and think with the elegance of simple one-liners. The prime example of this comes from Wartimes, which closes with the lament of "I know your father's name quite well."

myspace.com/aclassiceducation

aclassiceducation.com

last.fm/music/A+classic+education