ARTIST: Abandoned Pools
TITLE: Armed To The Teeth
LABEL: Universal
GENRE: Rock
BITRATE: 224kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 53min total
RELEASE DATE: 2005-09-27
RIP DATE: 2005-09-24

Track List

01. Lethal Killers                  4:07
02. Rabble                          3:59
03. The Catalyst                    4:15
04. Tighter Noose                   5:40
05. Waiting To Panic                3:36
06. Hunting (The Universe Breaks    4:57
My Heart)
07. Armed To The Teeth              3:17
08. Sooner Or Later                 5:49
09. Sailing Seas                    4:00
10. Renegade                        3:16
11. Maybe Then Someday              3:46
12. Goodbye Song                    6:30

Release Notes:

As we speculated in the notes to our advance, the advance was not a final master.
However! We still bring you the retail.  Enjoy.

For singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Tommy Walter, the name of his musical
alter ego, Abandoned Pools, once more seems to fit his situation like a well-worn
glove.

On Humanistic, his 2001 debut, it referred to his leaving behind a seemingly
carefree upbringing in the L.A. suburb of Westlake Village to pursue a career in
rock, which led him to become one of the founding members of the eels after
studying French horn and composition at USC and then University of the Pacific.
That dream had its roots in Walter's childhood love of pop and rock music,
beginning with the Star Wars soundtrack and Prince, then growing to include '80s
U.K. new wave bands, indie guitar rock and cutting-edge electronics, all of them
apparent on Humanistic as well as his brand-new Universal Records EP, The Reverb
EP.

That first album went on to sell almost 100k, thanks to the Modern Rock hit, "The
Remedy" and tours with the likes of Remy Zero, Garbage, Lenny Kravitz, Billy
Corgan and A Perfect Circle, but after the demise of his label, Walter found
himself back where he started. It took the dissolution of an intense romance for
him to throw himself back into his music, once again recording demos in his home
studio.

Produced by Gareth Jones (Depeche Mode, Interpol, Clinic, Erasure and Einstnrzende
Neubauten) and mixed by Ken Andrews (Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Failure, Year of
the Rabbit), the new five-song EP serves as a preview for Abandoned Pools'
upcoming full-length album, Armed to the Teeth, once again showcasing Walter's
ability to combine the macro and the micro, contrasting his despair with the world
situation and his own personal heartbreak.

Featuring holdover drummer Bryan Head and guitarist Sean Woolstenhulme, the band's
songs include "Armed to the Teeth," about "the way people wield their power by how
they consume and spend their money," whose slashing guitars and dance rhythms
evoke the likes of U2 and Joy Division. "Sooner or Later" suggests a world on the
edge of destruction, its layers of sound easing towards apocalypse with lyrics
like "I've got my finger/On trigger." Walter takes a crunching, grunge-rock
approach to his cover of Bjork's "Army of Me," while "The Catalyst" ("I wish I
could say something beautiful/To make you fall in love again") and the Coldplay
jangle of "Waiting to Panic" ("I'm thinking/My head is exploding") both deal with
the regret in the aftermath of a relationship gone awry.

"On that first record, people said they could hear the influences," says Walter.
"But this time, I think there's a little bit of bravado in there. I wrote what I
felt like writing. Things were happening in my life, and I just had to write about
them. That's how I dealt with it. I had to just dive right in."

When Walter isn't blaming himself for letting things unravel, he's taking on the
hypocrisy and fear in a post-9/11 universe. "This is such an aggressive world," he
says of Armed to the Teeth. "There's a very militaristic attitude in our country
right now. You can't walk down the street without getting run over by somebody in
an SUV. It's very mean-spirited and I just don't get that."

Wiser from his first brush with the music industry merry-go-round, Walter is sure
he's "armed to the teeth" for another opportunity.

"You sort of get caught up in yourself and how important you think everything
is," he says of lessons learned. "I'm a much calmer person now. I feel much better
about this record than I did the first one. I know it's good; I don't care what
other people think. If it does well, that would be nice, but it's not the most
important thing to me."

Walter also expresses confidence in his band, drummer Head and guitarist
Woolstenhulme, who'll be going out on tour with him, and have played with him for
several years.

Woolstenhulme, a fellow music conservatory grad who has toured with both Lifehouse
and The Jimmy Chamberlin Complex while counting iconoclasts Bill Frisell and
Thelonious Monk among his favorites, was drawn to Walter's compositional ambition.

"This is definitely a band. What's great about playing with Abandoned Pools is how
it allows me to use a wide palette of sounds," he says. "The music can be as
offensive or as pretty as you want. It covers the entire spectrum of rock. The
possibilities are endless. There's a meaning and purpose to it, as well as a
system behind it which makes it more of a challenge to play."

Drummer Head, who joined Tommy in Abandoned Pools as part of his first touring
band, is also a classically trained musician who has played with Geffen Records
band Black Lab and EMI act Ross Golan & Molehead. "It's difficult music, not the
kind you get tired of playing night after night," he says. "We span the gamut from
classical to hip-hop, electronic music and punk-rock. And my thing has always been
playing in a lot of different styles, which makes it difficult for me to be in a
single band. With this group, we get to stretch our muscles, creatively and
mentally. You leave every show exhausted. And the record has that live feeling
because we basically recorded it playing all together in a room."

"I'm a better performer and singer now," says Walter about his own development.
"I'm really looking forward to playing live and promoting this album. I'm just
going to go out there and say, 'Here are some songs about love and loss.' And I'm
sure people can relate."

Happily, Tommy Walter's loss represents a musical gain for Abandoned Pools fans.