They’re an Atlanta band, but they’re also a U.K. band. Or maybe they’re a New York band.
Wherever you place Algiers geographically, they’re one of the most exciting bands making music today. And indie rock road warrior Ted Leo agrees.
On Twitter recently, Leo wrote: “Tonight, @AlgiersMusic is the best live band on the planet. Taking no further questions at this time.”
Music critics have chimed in, too. Allmusic.com praises the band’s “musical and topical intensity alternately malevolent and passionate in searching and affirming truth, human and otherworldly.”
Algiers is often described as melding punk aggression with gospel’s soul-searching power, but those are just two of the more prevalent elements in the quartet’s singular sound. You’ll also hear the thump of funk, electronic exploration and the ghostly echoes of dub.
It all began back in 2012, though the roots of the band were established much earlier. “We’ve known each other for most of our lives,” said guitarist Lee Tesche, on a Zoom call from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, following a gig in Albuquerque the night before. He was accompanied by vocalist Franklin James Fisher and bassist Ryan Mahan. “We played music together as kids in different bands and were kind of fans of each other’s bands in Atlanta. Then as we went to school and moved to different cities, we continued collaborating and making music together. This band kind of came out of that, just this long-term vibration between all of us.”
Credit: Christian Högstedt
Credit: Christian Högstedt
“We didn’t really expect to be a band in the traditional sense,” said Mahan. “It all just kind of happened, living our lives, working on the music as a source of inspiration and release from the daily pressures and political pressures and everything like that.”
The band released the single “Blood” in 2012 on Atlanta label Double Phantom. “But even at that point in time, we weren’t really touring or playing live music, so it didn’t really coalesce until 2014 when we made our first record and we did some shows in London,” Mahan said. “It was funny, just three Atlantans turning into a U.K. band.”
Venerable indie label Matador heard the band’s early digital releases and expressed interest in working with them on an album. “And they had never seen us play live. In fact, we had never played a show, so it was a gamble on their part,” Mahan recalled.
The album that resulted, the 2015 debut “Algiers,” was recorded at London’s 4AD Studios, and soon after that came the addition of drummer Matt Tong, formerly with London-based post-punk band Bloc Party. Tong has been based in New York since 2010, and Mahan and Fisher have both spent a lot of the past decade in the city.
Extensive touring followed the debut album, including a run as the opening act for Depeche Mode’s 2017 European stadium tour right about the time Algiers released “The Underside of Power,” the follow-up to the debut. Both the album and the tour brought in new fans.
In January 2020, the band’s third album, “There Is No Year,” was released, followed by Algiers’ first national TV appearance on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on Jan. 31.
Then came COVID-19.
“We were about four dates in when everything more or less shut down in March of 2020,” Tesche recalled. “We were one of the last shows in the country, I feel like, which was a Saturday night in Atlanta at 529 (it was March 14, 2020) and everything shut down and we were just in our hometown and it gave us time and space to reconnect.”
Both Fisher and Mahan spent much of 2020 in and around Atlanta, staying with family.
“I was able to connect with the activist scene and everything that was going on in June, and the uprisings that were happening in Atlanta, going to marches and attending rallies and doing things that needed to be done to draw attention to anti-Black police violence. It was a real connection because Atlanta showed up big-time,” said Mahan.
It’s no surprise, then, that the band’s music is infused with political and social issues, too. And that comes from that place of activism Mahan mentions, making it feel less like the sloganeering that hampers many musicians who aspire to effect change through their art.
Like many musicians, Algiers spent their time away from the road creating new music, with a fourth album tentatively on the way for mid-2022.
Where “There Is No Year” felt introspective and had what Fisher calls “loud, laminated, multiplied Franklins,” the band describes the new album as closer to their live energy, with a lot of input from guests. And he thinks the extracurricular work that his bandmates have done outside the band has helped “inform their processes.”
Those outside endeavors were Mahan’s solo debut as Dead Meat, with “The End of Their World Is Coming!” released in December 2020, and Nun Gun, a collaboration between Tesche and Mahan with visual artist Brad Feuerhelm on a project called “Mondo Decay,” which was released on cassette (and digital download) with an accompanying 500-page book.
“I’m proud of those dudes for what they did, and I think it comes through on this record,” Fisher said.
“It’s the liveliest record that we’ve put together,” Mahan said of the upcoming fourth album, much of it being recorded in Philadelphia over the summer. “It’s got life. It’s got energy. It’s got experience.”
But before we get that new music, the band is finally getting to do some of that essential work of bringing their music to the masses. They’ve been back on the road to continue the tour that got cut short by the pandemic shutdown, and that brings them back home this weekend.
CONCERT PREVIEW
Algiers with Ganser and Philip Frobos
8:30 p.m. Oct. 9. $15. Proof of COVID-19 vaccination or negative test within 72 hours of showtime required. The EARL, 488 Flat Shoals Ave. NE, Atlanta. 404-522-3950, badearl.com.
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