Pillars of the enviable Athens, Ga., scene, the Modern Skirts have regularly been dipping down into Tampa Bay and wooing fans with their dazzling, catchy, emotive pop-rock for years. In 2005, the band released its admirable debut full-length, Catalogue of Generous Men. It includes the stunningly beautiful "NY Song," which has been played more than 60,000 times on MySpace and, in a music world that made sense, would have been the biggest radio smash of recent memory. I saw the Modern Skirts perform at New World Brewery last year and was even more enamored with their live performance than by the CD I cherish. The quartet returns to Ybor City Friday to play the larger Crowbar in celebration of the band's highly anticipated new full-length, All of Us in Our Night. The disc features the laidback, life-affirming piano-and-horn number "Radio Breaks," which can also be heard on the band's MySpace page.
Modern Skirts CD Release Party w/Talkdemonic/Clock Hands Strangle, 9 p.m. Fri. Oct. 17, Crowbar, Ybor City, $$.
This article appears in Oct 15-21, 2008.
