entertain

Have you heard of Local H? Chances are your friends haven’t heard of them either. They’re the kind of band that the fads never visited, the kind of band whose faithful fans have stayed with them since the beginning, the kind of band whose obscurity is enough to feel proud when one knows of its existence.

A two man group created around the same time as Nirvana, Local H has silently spread for roughly a decade, with its most popular song on YouTube (Bound for the Floor) currently with less than 400,000 hits. As a gauge for measuring the quality of a song, hits on a YouTube video can be deceiving. What are they? Who are they? Hard rock, grunge, and some metal here and there. Their songs span a plethora of topics, from love to self-hatred to despair to whatever. Sound familiar? Sounds like Nirvana? Maybe, but If you can’t stand Kurt Cobain’s voice or just want something different, Local H is here for you. The band points to Nirvana itself as a popular source of inspiration, meaning the mood, not the chord progressions. The songs are flowing with enough energy to find oneself absentmindedly losing hours, drumming fingers to the beat of the lyrics. Local H is the band to get hyped up with in a car, or to pass a boring day away, or to bob one’s head up and down during a dull train ride. But getting pumped up is only one of Local H’s finer points.

Like Nirvana, Local H’s pieces describe scenes and sets of emotions that tell stories. No, I’m not talking about unicorns and dragons and Prince Charmings and happy endings – these stories are for mature audiences only. They’re depressing, they’re disturbing, but they’re real, and are splattered with raw emotion without losing any energy. Picture a man whose academic future is on the line after sleeping with and impregnating a drug addict. Now picture the same man killing their baby, placing his future over the addict and her child. Make the song echo in your mind for weeks without relying on bloody details. Can’t do it? Listen to Hands on the Bible. Do you want to know what life looks like from an alcoholic’s eyes? That’s Fritz’s Corner. A struggling band falling flat on their first live performance and disappointing their fans? No, I’m not about to talk about Local H’s history – I’m taking about All The Kids Are Right. Stories and messages materialize as the curtains come up and each of Local H’s songs begin. Close your eyes and hit play; you won’t be disappointed.

If we must talk about Local H’s history and proof of their versatility, Scott Lucas, the lead vocalist and guitarist, plays the bass as well as the lead guitar simultaneously. When Local H was setting itself up, Lucas and the drummer, high school friend Joe Daniels, couldn’t find a bassist to hire, so Lucas rigged his guitar so he could play the bass.

Now, I’m not the fan that found Local H first, nor am I an obsessive collector of all things Local H – I learned about the band from a good friend of mine less than a year ago, and I learned about Local H’s history from the Internet – but when Local H was stuck in my head for four months straight from the get go, I simply had to assimilate their songs into my playlist. Ultimately, it’s about listening to something different today, listening to intellectually satisfying stories off the comfortable highways of mainstream culture.

Recommended songs to start: Half Life, Fritz’s Corner, Everyone Alive, Bound for the Floor, Toxic (Britney Spears Cover), Hands on the Bible, All the Kids Are Right, P.J. Soles