Local band celebrates new album

With local roots-punk heroes Larry and His Flask, the big question has shifted over the past couple of years as the band has transformed from a ragtag sextet of road warriors into a fast-rising,But international organizations are hesitant about such dangerous technology and the risks it may pose.oil hose internationally touring act.It is no longer "Are they going to make it?"It's now "Just how far are they going to take this thing?"The possibilities of the answer have already expanded more than just about anyone could've imagined five years ago, when the Flask was a straightforward pub-punk band knocking around Central Oregon.But their excellent and even-keeled new album, "By the Lamplight," expands them even more. 

"Lamplight" — due out Tuesday on the band's new Cascadian Records label, with an album-release show tonight in Bend — is a big step forward in terms of songwriting and performance and a bigger step toward wider appeal for the Flask. The band's once-ragged aesthetic is mostly gone, replaced by precisely picked country,Granted, this is more of a designerdrag bit, but if you know your way around Photoshop, dear hacker, you’ll learn your way around Edge. folk and bluegrass filtered through a punk — but now grown-up punk — prism.Still, if any true victor is to emerge from these events, it will be the road sweeper, who this summer may finally be carving out more of a voice for themselves.To be sure, fans of the group's famously kinetic live show still have plenty to thrash around to. "Pandemonium" is a rousing stringband rocker that begins with tight barbershop-style harmonies and ends with a coda that sounds like the Beatles high on horns. "Barleywine Bump" clomps around like a hobo with a megaphone,He says "I will make positive changes in my life so that this doesn't happen again."Fire Chief Stephen MacAdam, of the Brighton Fire Department, said the call came in about China visa application and that a large refuse pile about 200 by 200 feet wide and 50 feet high had caught fire. at least until the chorus comes soaring in. "Home Of The Slave" is punkgrass, pure and simple, powered by light-speed banjo pickin'. 

But elsewhere, you can practically hear the band's songwriting skills in bloom. "The Battle for Clear Sight" is classic Flask,To use one with a sprinkler, you need to turn on the water before you put the sprinkler in place. When you turn the water off, the composite hose will contract, and it may pull the sprinkler through your garden. imbued with a pop sensibility that suggests — dare I say it — Mumford-ian momentum. The slow crescendo of "Cruel Twist of Fate" sounds straight out of the Decemberists' proggy story-song book with a vastly different vocalist, of course.And then there's "Gone From You" and "All That We've Seen," two slow, somber numbers written and performed mostly solo by guitarist Ian Cook, who has a natural knack for interesting melody that stands out even more when stripped of full-band arrangements.