Music Style Rock

Musical Influences Coldplay, Radiohead, U2, PJ Harvey, REM

Similar Artists Coldplay, Radiohead, U2, PJ Harvey, REM

Artist History The three of us met seven years ago in arts high school where hairdryers and garbage cans were acceptable instruments.  Music has always been a big part of our lives. In the fall of 2001, having found guitars, drums and voices to be quite  pleasing, we  started playing together with a consciousness of musical  integrity. We wrote a few songs and quickly realized our musical potential together. Spending the next few months in our studio writing and recording, we found something that we felt was unique and interesting.

Group Members DAN LICHTY - vocals & guitars DMITRY - guitars ANDREW BLESSING - drums & cymbals

Albums ONE PROMISE EP

Press Reviews Official Website: http://www.Shadowboxband.com Shadow Box is ambitious. This may not be immediately apparent if you are talking to vocalist and guitarist Dan Lichty, or lead guitar player Dimitry who goes simply by his first name. Both Dimitry and Dan are soft-spoken, affable guys, refreshing qualities in musicians of their obvious caliber and potential. But from the moment they took the stage at the packed Uptown Bar Thursday night at their first gig as Shadow Box it was clear: This band has lofty aspirations. And they well should. The star quality of their 9 song debut show might have been predicted from their equally as ambitious 4 song CD ("One Promise") which knocked my socks off when I first heard it a few weeks ago. And apparently the CD had the same effect on others. Self-mixed and engineered by Lichty, the CD was mastered by Bob DeMaa at Asche & Spencer Studios earlier this year. The CD's top notch artwork and design were done by Dimitry, with band portraits by Heather Willems of Crave Photography. No expense seems to have been spared in preparing promotional materials for Thursday's show. For a band that just added bass player James Buckley a week ago, Shadow Box sounds a lot more seasoned than they have a right to at this point in their existence as an ensemble. If it weren't for the age issue, you might have thought they had been some great 70's band who'd been touring for 30 years already. In fact, even if if they'd had more than just the three rehearsals they did with Buckley, I would gather one would still be surprised to learn this fact. Their first song was welcomed by the kind of applause and whistles that smacks of "Holy Cow!" and "Awesome!" rather than just the polite kind of applause appropriate at the end of a song. Lichty then segued effortlessly into the lovely ballad "Stations" a song featured on their CD. Their third song "Castaway" was new to me, starting out with a riff of gently bouncing, reverberating guitar by Dimitry, and featuring chord progressions that made my friend's jaw drop. The song structure here was at times as complex as Radiohead or recent Doves, but pulled off beautifully, difficult for any songwriter, and even more difficult to do well without pretension. "Tug of War" also from the CD is one of the Shadow Box's catchiest love songs, again exhibiting the versatility and quality songwriting that could really take them places if they find a way to stand out in an arena where a lot of bands sound somewhat similar: Travis, Doves, Starsailor, etc.. But for what Shadow Box is doing, their first show at once establishes them as one of the big fish in the local pond. You could pay far more to see a lesser band, and Thursday night's show was free? "Roulette" is another catchy rocker which may stick in your head more than the others after listening to the CD. Live, it ended live with a cool, mouth-harp twangy sound that when I looked up I noticed was created by Dimitry plucking at his guitar on the bridge above the fret board. "Turning Around" was perhaps unremarkable only because everything else was so good. After this song Lichty felt the need to make what he might have referred to as the requisite weird comment a band should make from the stage. He said he'd seen a lot of people walking around lately wearing foot braces on their right foot. The moral of the story was to be careful where you step. I have no clue what prompted him to say this or whether it had any meaning at all, but it did serve to break up the set as he switched back to his Takamini acoustic for a slow and mournful ballad with lyrics speaking of "a long way down." Travis influence seemed to be present in the final song, the title track "One Promise" from their CD. Live, "Promise" wasn't quite as dreamy sounding production-wise as the CD version, but it was still nonetheless good. For some reason lyrically when Lichty sings "When all I want is love" I can't help but think of U2's similar line in "All I want is you." But again, Shadow Box's influences are well chosen as all the aforementioned groups are some of the best pop groups on the planet today (if all the bands I mentioned are English or Scottish that just shows my bias.) It's about time American bands started to make great, listenable pop/rock again as local bands Polara and Landing Gear have been doing for some time. And it's great to count Shadow Box as a newcomer with much promise. Shadow Box opened for Mars to Mercury on a bill headlined by A Band Called Delicious. Lichty promises another Shadow Box show soon, possibly as early as September, at a yet to be determined local venue.

Location Minneapolis, MN - USA

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