Hailing from the Appalachian Mountains in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee,U.S. CHRISTMAS create a kaleidoscopic brand of sound that evades easy classification. Founded in Marion, North Carolina in the summer of 2002, the band played rough biker bars, art spaces, and house shows all over the southeast dirt circuit for years, self-releasing albums in rough CDR format. Scott Kelly of Neurosis heard the band’s third record, Salt The Wound(released in Russia by the label RAIG) through his show on Combat Music Radio/KMBT, which inevitably lead to the release of the band’s fourth album Eat The Low Dogs on Neurot Recordings.
USX now approaches a decade of playing, recording, and evolving, and continues to blur the boundaries of heavy music with earsplitting rock that is by turns jangly, crushing, dark and truly eclectic. The band has often been associated with space rock with Germany's Rolling Stoneincluding the band in an article/compilation CD on the history of that genre. However, USX are not simply continuing the space rock tradition (although the band, alongside Minsk and Harvestman, recorded a tribute to the British space-searchers Hawkwind earlier this year, also released via Neurot), but are rather a group of musicians who pay attention to a wide variety of music from all eras and origins. Close attention to the band’s lyrical content will show that USXis not at all concerned with outer space, but rather themes of earth, nature and terrestrial human history. In fact, the mountains and people of western North Carolina are a primary influence on the band’s sound. And though many have focused on their use of vintage synthesizers and theremin, the band does not rely on any one instrument to create its bizarre sounds – proof that brains and hands are a musician’s most important tools.
U.S. CHRISTMAS:
Nate Hall – Guitars, Words, Vocals
Matt Johnson – Synthesizers, Guitars, Sounds
Chris Thomas – Guitars, Bass
BJ Graves – Drums
Justin Whitlow – Drums,
Experimental Sounds
Josh Holt – Bass, Drones
Meghan Mulhearn - Violin
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