Tennis and the Mennonites

Alright, back in the swing of things here for a few days at least. You may not have noticed, but I had an out of town wedding to attend this past weekend and there's another coming up this weekend. What that means is that I'm going to give you some more tasty new bands to check out in the next few days and then give you some of those out of town posts towards the end of the week, dig? Really, it should end up being business as usual I'm hoping. By the way, for the newer visitors, or those who don't pay attention, I've been living in New York City for five years now and I'm originally from Raleigh, NC. This is just to admit to any bias ahead of time - I happen to pay extra attention to NYC and NC based bands. But enough about me, on to what matters.

Tennis and the Mennonites got in touch with EAR FARM via MySpace a while ago. They're (a seven piece, I think?) from Chapel Hill, NC and were featured on the NC based blog The Oak Room, so I definitely should've taken notice of them sooner. Heck, they opened for Rogue Wave at a show in Chapel Hill in December...I guess if I was still living down there I definitely would've already been listening to them six months ago. As it stands, the timing works out well because their blend of acoustic singer-songwriter pop stuff mixed with plugged in indie-rock sounds really nice in the early summer sun.

Comparisons to Bright Eyes are too easy but wouldn't be far off mark. At the very least, if you're into Conor Oberst you'll probably thank yourself for checking out Tennis and the Mennonites, but what interests me more are the other bands I'm reminded of. I hear a bit of the acoustic pop sensibility of a band like The Cure in the song "Modern Eyes", some of the indie-rock tendencies of Folk Implosion in "Delayed", and the joie de vivre of Camper Van Beethoven throughout...among other things. As always, that's not to say that Tennis and the Mennonites are a carbon copy of any of these bands. No, they manage to sound like themselves at each moment and the two songs posted below attest to that fact. They're both worthy of multiple listens and should get you more than a bit excited for their new record that looks like it will be released soon. In the meantime, you should go see Tennis and the Mennonites live.

Listen:
"Delayed"
"Modern Eyes"

Visit Tennis and the Mennonites on MySpace