Early Empire

As someone who was at their first and last shows, not to mention countless in between, I had a bird’s eye view of their all too brief flight path. During that time, Early Empire went from being a good group to one I was going around proclaiming as the best live band in Columbus.

The picture above is the tray card from their lone CD, and features what most would consider their classic lineup. They actually had two other bass players before Joel, while the other four guys were there from the beginning. This was by far their longest tenured, most memorable, and consistently best iteration, though — but then again, in any guise, they were always good, from the first show onwards.

My only complaint is that these guys didn’t do more. As is sadly often the case from bands of that era (anything before 2008-ish, really), their music is currently unavailable on the streaming services, the only CDs limited to what was pressed at the time. They released this five (actually six) track EP in 2005, Resolutions and a Gun, and that was that, although they had many more songs than this in their live set, and I know recorded some others, at some point along the line. My favorite is probably Simpleton, which gets off to this amazingly frenetic start and never really lets off the gas from there, even when slowing things down a smidgen in the middle. Recorded at Diamond Mine studios in 2003, it’s a killer release…