I'll be posting the last few longish clippings from the Boylan Height press
kit by the end of next week;  sorry for the lack of continuity with this
project.  I had planned on following up with some longer articles dating
mostly from after the release of that album, but since there is no apparent
interest in this material, I'm inclined to spare you all the sequel.  :)

As always, please send comments, questions, corrections and voodoo curses
directly to the list.  Thanks.

---------------------------------------------------------

from New Musical Express, 13 September 1986

THE CONNELLS
Dallas Prophet Bar

THE CONNELLS -- two Connells brothers on bass and guitar, plus three pals --
have been together since '84.  Apparently, the fanzine readers of their
native North Carolina even voted them last year's favorite band.  And their
'Darker Days' LP was first released in England, on the Demon list.  Now it's
out here on indie Black Park Records, and this is their first major tour.

It surely won't be the last; by the sound of things tonight, this five-piece
could be the next REM-size monster from the South.  Their sound is more like
early Television than the live (and lamentable) REM;  they may
shock-vibe-jazz with the best, but the repertoire maintains a tensile
sparkle.  Humility, in fact, seems a central virtue -- and next to that, a
clear sense of pace.

The Connells build a dark and clanging poetry, chunky and rustic but with an
instrumental context as sweet as the freshest spring water.  Their rhythm
section provides a choppy, propulsive base, and the cumulative effect is
something like early Smiths with a valuable added instrument.

Main lead singer Doug MacMillan has a cowlick and a Mr Kipling's
Cake-complexion;  he punctuates his work with jabs of the mikestand against
the stage.  Tall bassist David Connell, sweats away at the carefully honed
dynamic -- a sweep which varies from the swelling, churchy sound through
pensive balladry.  The overall movement is handled with skill and this band
works hard at winning round their audience.

Win us over they did:  it's hard to figure an outfit this exciting as
relatively new.  But the Connells are just that band you hope will astonish
you down at the local dive, the one you hope to run across yet very rarely
do.  Their music is pretty yet driving; their double vocals are stunning --
even a instrumental shines with that marriage of tune and tension able to
make a guitar band great.  Definitely, this is a band to watch with three
potential hits ('1934', 'Hats Off', 'Darker Days') up their T-shirt
leeves.  -  Cynthia Rose

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