U.s. Christmas / Run Thick In The Night

Neurot Recordings

Hailing from the Appalachian mountains region of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, US Christmas's unique brand of psychedelic, high-volume blues rock evades easy classification. The band was founded in Marion, NC, in the summer of 2002, and played biker bars, art spaces and house shows all over the Southeast dirt circuit for years, self-releasing albums in CDR form. Scott Kelly of Neurosis heard their third album Salt the Wound via his radio show Combat Music Radio / KMBT, which lead to the release of 2008's Eat the Low Dogs on Neurot Recordings.  US Christmas 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 and dark. The group has often been associated with space rock, and Rolling Stone even included them in an article / compilation CD on the history of that genre. However, while they recently collaborated with Minsk and Harvestman on a three-way tribute album to the British space-searchers Hawkwind, US Christmas is influenced by a wide variety of music from all eras and origins. 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 are a musician's most important tool.  US Christmas toured Europe with Oakland thrashers Saviours in the spring of 2009, and played Neurosis's third Beyond the Pale at the Roadburn Festival in Tillburg, Holland. In March 2009, the group was part of Weedeater's "9 Toe" tour of the American deep south, and was part of Tone Deaf Touring's South by Southwest festival showcase in Austin, Texas. Run Thick in the Night, US Christmas's fifth full-length album, was recorded with producer / engineer Sanford Parker.

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