Complete control

An old rock ’n’ roll dichotomy, dating back at least to the ’70s, is punk versus progressive. Punk bands are loose and anarchic. Prog bands are tight and controlled. The punk impulse is toward chaos, the progressive impulse is toward order. One approach is not necessarily better than the other. There are great punk bands and great prog bands (and great bands able to incorporate elements of both). And though hardcore and subsequently post-hardcore are derived from punk rock, many contemporary bands who describe themselves as post-hardcore are more prog than punk.

Come Home Geoffrey is such a band. They have more in common with, for example, the technical metal of Dream Theater than the earlier punky post-hardcore of, say, Fugazi. Come Home Geoffrey’s music is heavy but melodic, carefully planned and precise, and the band’s songs are complex, unpredictable epics.

Vocalist Nick Major can sing cleanly or shout ferociously. Guitarists Russell Eck and Alex King move from heavy metal train-chugging to anthemic alt-rock chord changes. Bassist Christian Lim has the secret-weapon status of a good bassist—the kind of supportive player you might not even notice at first, before realizing he’s probably the best instrumentalist in the group. And drummer Sean Murphy ties it all together with his thoughtful, unfussy rhythms and careful accents. (Unbeknownst to the author until mid-interview, Murphy is the son of John Murphy, the general manager/publisher of the Reno News & Review.)

The band took its name from a Skype conversation between Major and his brother, Geoffrey. Major says acquaintances sometimes take the name to mean that Geoffrey is in the military. He’s not. He was only across town when the conversation occurred.

Major’s voice is usually up front, leading the songs, but Eck and Murphy also contribute vocals. Eck favors a death metal growl, and Murphy a poppy falsetto, and the three vocalists occasionally conjure up some unusual harmonies or call-and-response vocal parts.

The band incorporates prerecorded keyboards, acoustic guitars and other sounds into their live performances, and not just as short intro pieces, but as elements throughout the songs. The musicians are able to match the tempos of the prerecorded tracks by following Murphy, who plays to a hidden metronome, even during live shows.

“We do that so the songs are always the same tempo,” says Eck. “Most bands generally tend to speed up live, so the fast songs get even faster. But this way, we keep the feel of album, which some people like and some people don’t.”

The band’s new CD EP, King Alex the Cat, comes out on March 9, with a record release party at the Knitting Factory, also featuring local bands Alice Alice, Seas & Centuries, Drag Me Under and Crush.

The group’s tight, controlled sound is the result of a distinctly 21st century approach to songwriting. Eck will record a solo demo of a song, and then pass it to each of the instrumentalists, who then write their own parts individually, then Major gets the demo, and he writes the lyrics and vocal parts to fit the nearly completed song. This means that the first time the band gets together to practice a song, they’ve already practiced it separately, and it’s already completely written—though they often refine and revise after playing it together.

“We don’t jam,” says Eck. “We write it all out.”

“When I get a demo, I listen to it over and over and get the feeling of it,” says Major. He then makes decisions about vocal approach, usually matching the quiet, melodic parts with clean singing, and the more metallic, heavy parts with screams and shouts, and lyrics that fit those moods.

“On this CD, most of it is about love, or fear of losing someone—all that good, happy but depressing stuff,” he says.