The Key Studio Sessions: Commonwealth Choir
Simply put, Commonwealth Choir is one of the most fun rock bands you can see in Philadelphia right now. They’ve got charisma: dueling frontmen Davis Jameson Howley and Nick Cislak leap around behind their mics, while multi-instrumentalist William Christopher Chamuris is the liveliest hype man we’ve seen in a rock band in recent memory (it’s the beard that does the trick). Drummer Jim “Hong Kong” Keifer kicks out propulsive rhythms and Maurizio Mazza holds it down on bass. Building on that, the Choir also has hooky, power pop-tastic songs – think The Replacements, Pavement, Weezer, The Strokes – and when you get a room of people together who want to dance, and they’re the band on stage, it’s like the freaking perfect storm. The Doylestown-bred crew introduced itself to the Philly scene last year with the Shirtless EP; this year it has plans for a followup, and gave us a taste of two new songs in this weeks’ Key Studio Session. “Palace” is an opening track that will get stuck in your head in the best possible way, while “Pacers” is (as Howley describes it) “a real rattlesnake” of a song – check out a great video for it below via videographers James Powers and Bob Sweeney. (Additional shoutouts to photographer Ryan Boswell for the brillian mix of film and digital in the above gallery, and Tom Volpicelli at Mastering House for making the session sound like a knockout.) Commonwealth Choir brings its party to the stage of Underground Arts on February 6th for the Communion Club night, and further on down the road, will headline MilkBoy on March 15th along with Pine Barons and Big Tusk. You can get all the info on those shows at the XPN Concert Calendar. But wait a little bit. Right now, stream, download, watch and rock out.