Scuba

The Boston Globe

December 22, 2005
Calendar Section: NightLife
by Scott Sutherland

"P.A.'s Lounge in Somerville gets its holiday party going with ... moody indie rock Scuba...now a four-piece guitar band playing distorion-laced, original, indie-power-pop influenced by bands like Swervedriver, Swell, Jesus and Mary Chain, Guided by Voices, Spacemen 3, Cure. And so on. Not a bad soundtrack for your holiday '05 memories."

Boston Phoenix

December 22, 2005
SoundBites Section

Alert The Colbert Report: P.A.'s Lounge has tossed a hand grenade in the War on Christmas! Tonight, everyone's favorite Union Square rock dive throws its very own "X-Mas party" with... Scuba, an indie-pop foursome who spell the word "licks" the porn way ("Fish with Some Lixxx") and sing about sweat in Massachusset's armpit ("Worcester Rain"). Careful granting those interview requests kids: Hell hath no fury like a scornful Daily Show correspondent...

Boston Metro

December 22, 2005

P.A.'s X-mas Party
A hipster club without the word "hipster" in quotes, the down-to_earth P.A.'s Lounge is always worth the walk ... Tonight, celebrate the holla-days with ... distortion masters Scuba.

The Boston Globe

February 2, 2005
GO! Section
by JA Sullivan

"Let us now praise 'shoegazer' bands. First, a definition: The term 'shoegazer' came to be applied to certain bands, mostly British, that existed during the 1980s and 1990s. My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Swervedriver, Spaceman 3, and Swell were called shoegazers because, well, lots of times their members stared at the floor (or at their fretboards) and paid practically zero attention to pumping up the audience... This no-show-biz approach became a 'negative' in some eyes -- not Go!'s -- because some people thought proper bands ought to cavort, smile, and banter with the audience. Others thought the emotion conveyed in the music was enough, thank you very much. We bring this up because the newish Boston band Scuba does so on its website. And a listen to its demo disc, 'Hate It When You Laugh,' suggests it's playing in the same ballpark as the aforementioned shoegazers. It's a graceful disc. The music should swell and subside, in a lovely manner."

The Noise

July/Aug 2004
by Steve Gisselbrecht

Tonight is Aloud's EP release party at The Plan. Opening up are Scuba. I find their overall sound very compelling. It keeps reminding me of Green Magnet School a little bit, with the crisp, melodic bass punching through the wash of reverb and distortion laid down by the guitarist. The singing is the weak point, with a fair amount of sloppy wandering around off-key, but I like the guitar enough to pretty much offset that. The other weird thing about their songs is that most of them lack recognizable endings. This isn't an inherently bad thing---I'm not one to insist on straightforward song structure from every band---it just means that they get less enthusiastic applause than they deserve, because no one is sure when it's time to start clapping.