“A band you may have no expectations for but who exceed them anyway. 5 out of 5!"—Alternative Press

If you can think back far enough—back before Hot Topic and the Warped Tour—there were groups who played challenging and innovative guitar-based music just for the love of playing. Sure, The Valley Arena’s kindred spirits Drive Like Jehu and Burning Airlines never sold a ton of records, nor were their images plastered on teenage girls’ lockers, but their music continues to inspire and evolve, long after their members have hung up their instruments. The Valley Arena is that kind of band.

Formed in Long Beach, CA in 2003, TVA—singer/guitarist Warren Woodward, guitarist/vocalist Chris Stevens, bassist Dave South, and drummer Mike Nielson—paid their dues with other bands working the SoCal circuit (Mike and Chris first played together at the age of 13), but the first time the four attempted to combine their separate pursuits into one entity, things instantly clicked. Mere months after their inception, the group had completed enough material for their first full-length album, Take Comfort in Strangers.

Produced by Jason Cupp (The Elected, Finch, Val Emmich) while the band were still unsigned, the debut recalled D.C. darlings Fugazi and Q And Not U, the darker undertones of the first generation of post-punk and art-punk with a hint of mid-’90s Touch And Go Records-style aggression. New Jersey's Eyeball/Astro Magnetics Records pounced, and released Take Comfort in Strangers shortly after its completion.

Since that 2005 offering, The Valley Arena has relentlessly toured the U.S. and Europe (supporting Thrice), garnered rave reviews in magazines like Alternative Press, Filter and Revolver and, defying all logic, saw their home-made music video voted #1 on Fuse’s Oven Fresh show—over Coldplay, U2 and Eminem.

In late 2006 they returned to the studio with Cupp, cranking furiously on their 2nd full-length, the highly-evolved Sesso.Vita (Italian for "Sex/Life"), a cycle of stories set in a desperate, hyper-sexual re-imagination of their hometown. Trading in their brash guitar battles for snake-like grooves and songwriting that digs deep under the skin, The Valley Arena has unleashed their first single from the new disc, "Kick At The Ceiling", in a special colored-vinyl 7" release on JAXART/Eschatone.


Valley Arena links