The North Atlantic

Henry David Thoreau was quoted as saying that most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them. The North Atlantic are not most men, though they are mostly men. And there is nothing quiet about their desperation. With bloodshot, whiskey-addled fervor, The North Atlantic is heralding the end of all that is stagnant and complacent in the underground and in America's mainstream political culture.

Forming in 1999 in Kalamazoo, Mich., The North Atlantic trafficked in intense house shows and were caught out of their league, playing their second show with Lansing's Small Brown Bike and their sixth with Cursive. Having relocated to San Diego in August of 2000, The North Atlantic is no longer out of their league?in fact, they are defining it. "Buried Under Tundra," released in 2001, has been called "a frigid reflection on estrangement and isolation underpinned by bits of zig-zag rhythm and piercing melody" (Denver Westword). In 2003, "Wires in the Walls" married Jason Hendrix's drunkenly literate lyrics of post-millennial paranoia and desolation to dynamic, angular songs rooted equally in DC hardcore, New York post-punk and Chicago noise rock. San Diego Citybeat called Wires "easily one of the best releases in San Diego in a year plus."

2005 finds these boys hungry and more passionate than ever. Working in fitful fragments of time, communicating by carrier pigeon, The North Atlantic is poised to unleash a downpour on holier-than-thou scenesters, cartoonishly emotive pretenders, genre-obsessed taxonomists and your ass. Look for extensive touring and a split 7-inch with Denver's Red Cloud in January in 2006.

The North Atlantic is Cullen Hendrix, Jason Hendrix, and Jason Richards.