Reviews
When you kick off your record with a line like, “The lesbians were vampires / so we fired away” — as Quichenight singer, songster and auteur Brett Rosenberg does on the band’s self-released, self-titled debut — you’re sure as hell not pussyfootin’ around your intended audience of sad bastards and snarky ne’er-do-wells. Here’s another bon mot: “Bartender’s readin’ The Da Vinci Code / Orderin’ waters, man, I feel like a chode,” from the aptly titled, bouncy pop ditty “615.” Littered with cheerfully cutting references to Five Points, “blues gigs at titty bars” and the like, Rosenberg & Co.’s East Nashville-themed, loose, lo-fi lifestyle-rock jumps back and forth from dreamy (“L.A. Time”), to bluesy (“Michelle’s Motel”) to brash (“Crappel Tunnel”), and everywhere in between without ever letting a knack for whistle-worthy pop melodies take a backseat. Delivered with a bell-clear croon that almost merits an Elliot Smith comparison, and laconic by-pants-seat execution that completely merits Rosenberg’s self-proclaimed Robert Pollard comparison — the longest of 15 tracks clocks in just over three minutes, the shortest just under one — there’s no doubt Quichenight’s rock is coming from a real place.
—Adam Gold, Nashville Scene, June 2011
Let’s be honest here and I’ll say publicly what I’ve said privately or at least what I said out loud to my dog: Quichenight is a godawful name. In fact, it’s kept me from posting about them in the space. But we can become used to words even though they sound weird (think about Kleenex or Toyota or Pitchfork or uh…Deckfight? still settling in on that one) and the music of Quichenight makes that transition a lot smoother.
It’s hard to scoff at the name when there’s quality behind it, like in “LA Time.” Not sure if that’s Lower Alabama or the Big Angeleno (what about Nashville Time, word) but it doesn’t matter much in this bleary song, because it’s good. Brett Rosenberg’s voice is creepy confident, and the song has this low-level peaceful smog feel, similar to Cults. Maybe the smog is LA.
—Deckfight.com, September 2011
Quichenight I, the first album by Boston native Brett Rosenberg’s band Quichenight, is an enjoyable mix of laid-back acoustic guitar strumming, keyboard harmonies, and quirky yet unpretentious lyrics in the vein of Scott McCaughey. Though the album was recorded “in a Nashville Tennessee basement”, there is little of the traditional Nashville sound at work here apart from country-pop exercise “615.”
The various genre exercises on the album are given consistency by lyrics, which have the tossed-off quality of diary entries without any of the exhibitionist histrionics the comparison entails. “Bartender reading the Da Vinci Code / Ordering waters, man I feel like a chode,” sings Rosenberg. Someday in the future, lines like that one and many others on Quichenight I will stand as acceptable documentation of what unremarkable evenings must have been like circa 2011.
—Daniel Levine, ObscureSound.com, September 2011
