IndiePulse Reviews: Electrical Living by The Persian Leaps

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Joseph Timmons in featured, Featured Artists / Bands, Featured Content, Featured Labels, Featured Record Stores, news // 0 Comments

“The Persian Leaps” began as a phrase singer/guitarist Drew Forsberg doodled in a notebook margin during a college Greek Archaeology course. He wrote music independently under that name for years, until finally assembling a full band in 2012 to perform and record driving, chiming music influenced by The Smiths, Guided by Voices, and Teenage Fanclub.

The Persian Leaps have adhered to a disciplined schedule of concise releases: each fall bringing an EP of five songs totaling fifteen minutes or less. In 2013, the Persian Leaps released their debut EP Praise Elephants, which NME Magazine described as “celestial guitar jangle”. The band completed a follow-up EP Drive Drive Delay in 2014, praised by XS Noize for its “instantly catchy melodic harmonies layered on top of droning guitar.” In 2015, the band released High & Vibrate, an EP championed by The Big Takeover for its “big-time hooks, upbeat attitude, classic power-trio punch.” 2016 saw the release of Your City, Underwater, which earned a spot on The Big Takeover’s Top 30 EPs of 2016.

In September of 2017, the band’s fifth EP Bicycle Face was delivered yet again to fan and critic praise. Named for a 19th-century medical condition concocted to scare women away from biking, Bicycle Face was described as a “perfect power pop cocktail” by 50thirdand3rd. Pop That Goes Crunch, an 18-song best-of anthology released in 2018, marked the end of an era while celebrating and revisiting some of the Persian Leaps’ best work.

In 2018, the Persian Leaps retired as a live, full band and returned to their roots as a studio project. Together with Jon Hunt, a musician and graphic designer who has created the cover art for most of the band’s releases to date, Drew Forsberg recorded 11 new songs that continue the Persian Leaps guitar-driven power pop/indie rock sound while adding keyboards for the first time. The resulting album, Electrical Living, was released by Land Ski Records on October 4, 2019.

In Review: Electrical Living is a bright and gleaming star, the high pop of guitar and the steady backbeat in their music reminds me if the late 80’s throwback scene, when the writing style of 50’s era music was mixed with more modern style and contemporary topic structure, yet The Persian Leaps have also infused an open dialog style, along with a post punk / power pop symbolism in the composition of their music, short yet powerful pieces with some angst and mirth, I do wonder if theses guys were big DEVO fans in their youth, if only for the homage to the “Church of the Slacker” imagery on this album cover. The entire album just shimmers and rocks, it is a hit with no misses…

And why is the boy on the cover carrying a blood stained axe??

Track after track, this is definitely an album for the modern philosophers and thinkers, and the lyrics, some dual edged sword of Damocles stuff going on here.

My favorite track on this blast from the past styled omnipotent collection of magic wax wonders… How We Win, this is the mighty megaton bomb that hits hard and keeps on vibeing.

“Electrical Living” is a departure for the band, in many ways, and is the beginning of a new era. After our 2017 EP Bicycle Face, we dissolved amicably as a full, live band. However, I wanted to continue on with the Persian Leaps and return to the band’s studio project roots. So, the 11 songs on the album were performed by myself and Jon Hunt, a longtime Minneapolis musician, as well as the graphic designer who’s created our album covers for years. My goal was to retain the core guitar-driven Persian Leaps sound while trying out some new things like using keyboards for the very first time. Our new process has worked so well that we’re already starting on the follow-up album, so stay tuned! — Drew Forsberg

Who needs TED Talks when you can have The Persian Leaps