It’s an interesting experience, attempting to grow up individual in Los Angeles. In making a style or a name of your own, it’s next to impossible to avoid someone mentioning your lack of originality. Music is not exempt from such scrutiny, and usually is of the “cookie-cutter” description - i.e. barely audible distinctions between Fall Out Boy and Panic at the Disco; *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys; Cake and Flobots. Competition for more widespread play seems to churn out more of the same and in bulk, but it’s still cookie-cutter-ed; it all goes down the same. The shrewd consumer will notice that if they ate one sugar cookie and then another, each with a different-colored frosting, they were actually eating the exact same baked good - and that (gasp!) blue frosting is not a different flavor than red.

The benefit to the indie music scene is that it won’t come to you from a standard box. More than likely you won’t ingest processed ingredients; you’ll get something homemade or sold in specialty stores. Perhaps it can be privately delivered. Hard work might warrant fancy limos or an entourage, but plenty of people get along fine without it. An indie band’s life span comes at the result of word of mouth and support by friends, family, and a real fan base, because it is founded on quality and is less likely to spoil quickly due to over-exposure.

Local band Citizen Savant consists of Tracey Hayden (vocals), Ernie Shabazz (electric guitar), Kevin Johnson (bass), Naren Renz (keyboard), and William Gresch (drums), and upon first listen their EP “Man Down”, I could tell that this was a band in every sense of the word - “joined, acting, and functioning together”. Most bands, despite any level of talent, tend to focus on the one person that makes that group soar, the front person (Fergie of the Black Eyes Peas; Pete Wentz of the aforementioned Fall Out Boy; Davey Havok of AFI), another unfortunate quality of the mainstream that goes with the territory - but not so with Citizen Savant. Each member contributes in a manner of constant fluidity similar to a well-written story, in the way that your mind is on all the characters, and not waiting for the supposed heroine’s thoughts to come bounding onto the page.

At the same time, however, it is impossible to veer away from the very sexy, androgynous quality of Tracy Hayden’s vocals. A first listen to “Give You a Diamond” invoked feelings upon a listen to Our Lady Peace’s “One Man Army” - namely, electric. The ability to venture from subtle styles of Raine Maida to Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs; “Rich”) in less than four minutes - confirming that for damned sure nothing is new under the sun - shows that there is a proper way to exude possible inspiration without outright imitation. The theme throughout is expressed through musical phrases scattered in a million directions, binding where appropriate - a symphony, intermittent yet controlled.

Personally, listening to this EP allowed me to fondly recall a time once spent on the bridge of a child’s understanding and a teenager’s confusion - my fourteenth year. Often spent in the backseat of my sister’s friend’s truck, hitting up the local 7-11 on summer evenings, we would listen to Garbage, Hole, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana - bands that sounded and blended together with unanticipated intensity that rocked my innards. It was a good time to be a musical [and therefore intellectual and emotional] sponge. Ten years later, it’s a comfort to know that music is still a vehicle used to expand the mind and cause the listener to feel - fluid, exposed, aware, vulnerable, charged - to have layers exposed from beneath a tougher skin, just like it was yesterday.

“Man Down” Track Listing:
-Stick Figures
-Plastic Heart
-Give You a Diamond

myspace.com/Citizen Savant

Photo via Myspace

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