I've always been strongly of the opinion that the true magic of a music festival lies not in the big name acts - the acts people know for a fact are good and enjoy but in the discovery of smaller acts that are perhaps far easier to miss. Hopscotch has made it both easier and harder to prove this assertion as they do a very good job booking so many interesting acts to so many interesting venues that you're torn between where you want to and where you should be. Raleigh's own Truth Club are a band I caught based purely on word of mouth from locals. When I asked everyone their plans for the penultimate day of Hopscotch everyone was sure to leave time in their schedules for Truth Club and I made sure to do the same.
The thing that intrigued me the most about the Raleigh trio lied mostly in the voice of singer/guitarist Travis Harrington. Among angular guitar melodies, surging tempos, and shifting dynamics, it's the one thing I found myself returning to and focusing on. Despite how many times you listen to any Truth Club song (and currently there aren't very many), you never quite get a sense of predictability from Harrington's vocal leaps. Truth Club sit at the intersection of pop punk and indie pop but never quite show their hand with where they're pulling influence in a particular song. Harrington's vocals are dynamic: whether their craning, or proceeding with a start-stop clip like a skipped stone they dictate essentially where the songs can go. That's not to say that the band aren't capable of truly intriguing instrumental moments: they are. Truth Club's song are made of an impressive assortment of these little memorable moments like the sudden cacophony in "Post-FOMO Life" or the drum hits that seem to punctuate the end of each of Harrington's thoughts on "Hi From C.A.". Despite their simple, standard setup, they play and write music with an air of maturity that's somewhat unexpected. Maybe that's due to past experience (Harrington was a member of Wilmington's Astro Cowboy) but one thing is clear: the band are sure to captivate from their very first note.
Truth Club's debut release Interest Meeting, released earlier this summer, is out now. You can grab it at a pay-what-you-want rate on Bandcamp.
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