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 ..Brave Saint Saturn..
A concept
album that places the band in space, this is the dark outing of Five Iron Frenzy's singer Reese Roper. Brave Saint Saturn
catalogues the darker issues of Roper's life that could not be expressed in his ska-core band's brand of light-heartedness.
Roper is joined by bassist and best friend Keith Hoerig and FIF's trombonist Dennis Culper. Here Roper tackles the anger
and betrayal born from losing his fiancee to the death of his grandmother. The most tender moments come on songs like
"Gloria" in which Roper almost whispers "too weak to wonder, to tired to care/ Jesus Christ, are you really there?"
As with many of Five Iron Frenzy's more serious songs, Roper deals with the pull of religion vs. a true relationship with
Christ. It is not without its share of silliness, as in the hilarious "Shadow of Def", reminiscent of a certain folk-hop
group. But it is Roper's tales of depression and desperation that make this album a beautiful endeavor. Under
all the hopelessness, Roper shows the listener the value of his relationship with Jesus that makes every new day seem so new.
-Ryan Adams June 17th, 2002
Brave Saint Saturn
So Far From Home
 In the ever-evolving world of music it seems that new genres are born every day, ranging from the accesible alternative-rock
to the hipsters avant-garde-neoclassical-jazzy-grindcore. Now, from members of Five Iron Frenzy comes the launch of a new
project, Brave Saint Saturn, and with it a whole new genre of music. Welcome to the final frontier: astro-rock!
Pushing
musical and lyrical boundaries is all in a days work for Five Iron Frenzy and Brave Saint Saturn members Reese Roper, Dennis
Culp and Keith Hoerig. Brave Saint Saturns debut album "So Far from Home" will hit shelves everywhere on June 20th, and with
it, evidence of some of the most experimental and eloquent songwriting this side of the solar system.
Astro-rock and
its twin sister space-pop are foreign terms which aptly describe this albums harmonious collision of Ropers vocals, lyrics
and electric guitar, Culps electric and acoustic guitars, bass, vocals and Hoerigs bass. This central core is heavily augmented
by programming, percussion (Satrianis Jeff Campitelli, FIFs Andrew Verdecchio), keyboards, accordians (Those Darn Accordians
Big Lou), strings (Rivulets and Violets Masaki) and turntables (FIFs Micah Ortega). Produced by Masaki, Brave Saint Saturn
takes a huge stylistic departure from the poppy ska-punk of Five Iron Frenzy.
 The buzz surrounding the impending release of So Far From Home is growing through Brave Saint Saturns offical website
(www.bravesaintsaturn.com) which is averaging nearly a thousand hits per day, as well as positive album reviews. Bandoppler
Magazine (http://www.bandoppler.com/REVbravess.html) enthuses "BSS could easily be one of the most standout albums of the
year... Brave Saint Saturn is going where no album has gone before. It may be too real for some people, but thats exactly
why its so good. Enough of hiding the truth with pretty words and fancy phrases, BSS is honest, real and straight forward."
Created by Roper in 1995, Brave Saint Saturn was initially a platform for Roper to express his thoughts on topics
traditionally considered dark and emotional. Lyrically this is definitely the dark side of Five Iron Frenzy," explains Roper,
"It is a lot of songs about struggling with the world and tragedy." An example of this, the song "2-29" is about the death
of Ropers grandmother. The track opens with the haunting sound clip of the Challenger shuttles countdown and liftoff as relayed
by Mission Control, and then flows directly into the opening lines. Rounding out the poignant lyrics of loss is another sound
clip of Dylan Thomas reading his infamous elegy "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night."
Even though loss, alienation,
loneliness, numbness and pain are reccurent themes throughout the album,  they are not dark for darkness sake alone. "Ive tried to show the redemption and peace of God through tragic things,"
elaborates Roper. "I think overall the lyrics are about hope."
This summer, Brave Saint Saturn is scheduled to make
two highly anticipated appearances at Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, Illinois and at TOM Festival in Stevenson, Washington.
Roper has already started to write for the second album, so the future of Brave Saint Saturn is as open and as optimistic
as 1960s space exploration itself. Look out world: here comes astro-rock!
all supplemental materials sourced from:
www.bravesaintsaturn.com
or
www.realmagazine.com
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