Lorna Slavin

And now for something completely different. A few years back, I ordered a vinyl copy of Inside the Whale's superlative album Manifest, and the band member threw in a copy of Lorna Slavin's only release as a bonus. I expected something along the same lines, and that is not what I got. At least, not all the time.

To call this release eclectic would be an understatement. I threw pretty much every genre tag I could think of at this thing and, honestly, I could probably toss in a few more. Lorna Slavin often sound like a completely different band from song to song—sometimes they sound like a completely different band within the same song. This band was clearly a short-lived project, and maybe that's the way it had to be, because it feels like every band member brought in their influences and inclinations from previous bands and when it came time to decide what kind of band they were going to be, the answer was, 'all of them.' It's difficult to imagine a follow up album that wouldn't veer in one direction or the other. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like this kind of balancing act would be difficult to replicate.

The 2007 EP Call Them And They Will Rise is Lorna Slavin's only release, featuring six diverse songs.

Call Them And They Will Rise

Fighting For Alaska

Fighting For Alaska were an emo pop band from Australia. I'm pretty sure I ran across them on the long-defunct Epitonic, along with a ton of other bands which were formative for me. They lean hard on the pop part of emo pop, but the influence of the catchier breed of emo bands is unmistakable in their music, especially in a darker-tinted song like If You Have To. This is catchy, emo-flavored indie rock-pop with a great singalong quality to a lot of the choruses.

I know my collection is woefully incomplete—they released some material under the name Alaska and I think there are other releases under their full name as well, as I've seen mentions that hint at a much wider discography. Sadly, they've proven impossible to find, at least outside of Australia. All I have are 2004's The Long Way Home and the self-titled EP from 2006.

Fighting For Alaska