CORRESPONDENCE ROCK. Letters From Earth is Riley Schiefelbein (guitars), Phil Langhout (drums), Tyler Griggs (vocals), and Matt Smith (bass).

Despite the assertion of religious types to the contrary, the universe lacks a P.O. Box.  Yet that hasn’t stopped us from motioning our missives to the moon and beyond as signals safely sequestered among satellites or plaintive voices straining after star trails in the long fever night in the never ebbing hope someone will listen.  Aptly named, and nabbed from Mark Twain’s controversial collection, Eau Claire’s Letters From Earth are a new addition to the collective cry, offering songs they hope will shift them from background radiation into the very sun of your heart.  I recently sat down with Tyler Griggs (vocals), Matt Smith (bass), Riley Schiefelbein (guitars) and Phil Langhout (drums) in Griggs’ basement, amidst the disorder of a move that will soon materialize into a home, to discuss the big bang birth pangs of their debut, The Instant Gratification EP.

The culmination of three and a half years of hard work, TIGEP finally came to cohere at Pine Hollow Audio (in Eau Claire) under the cosmic supervision of Evan Middlesworth, fitting given the EP’s thematic concern, and Twain’s central conceit, of “…some entity out in space and its observation of us on Earth,” notes Schiefelbein. The title track plays this to particular satiric effect: “It’s a statement on society, the hypocritical sense of balance between instant gratification and quality,” says Smith.  

Indeed, the entire EP deftly dangles between the immediacy of its undeniable hooks and the kinds of layers that will guarantee it a grower.

Indeed, the entire EP deftly dangles between the immediacy of its undeniable hooks and the kind of layers that will guarantee it a grower.  Take “Twenty Thousand Leagues beneath the Brainwaves” as an example, a deceptively jaunty track Griggs describes as “Carl Sagan rock.”  Warming with a wink in his voice, Griggs elaborates, “There is certainly this nautical implication when we think of waves, but we also invoke waves in metaphoric language like ‘ocean of stars.’  Ultimately, this song is about accessing outer space via inner space.” 

Production-wise, every band member has, as Griggs calls it, “spotlight room,” from Schiefelbein’s dirty 80s rock riffing on “Hot Sex” (which he affectionately dubs “Trailer metal”), to Smith’s water-smooth bass lines in “Something Frightening,” to Langhout’s dexterous drum fills throughout the eerily evocative, occasionally Ulver-esque “Velveteen Rabbit” to Griggs’ constant, lower register collision between Nick Cave and Hammer of Misfortune’s Joe Hutton.  “I’ve never been in a situation where songwriting is so democratic,” explains Smith.  Not bad for a bunch of self-described “disenfranchised megalomaniacs.”  

With the release of TIGEP about to offer LFE up like a celestial sacrifice atop some runic stone, all that remains is the potential response from some alien world (aka the EC music scene).  “No one in the band is native to here.  So while we are very familiar with the scene, we are also very much outside of it,” insists Griggs.  However, if their live show is any indicator, some affirmative sign should be forthcoming shortly.  LFE believes not in static performances, rather kinetically flinging their constituent parts like electrons bound in orbit to an electric stage.  And that’s before they even bust out the megaphone…