Fishboy is a four piece group from Texas’ “other Austin”, Denton. The group initially was a solo project of Eric Michener’s who received his nickname from a middle school field trip to the Dallas World Aquarium where he accepted the dare to swallow a fish. Hence “Fishboy”. Later Mechener moved to Denton with his collection of rough recordings and continued to work on his sound until it became what you hear today.

Classic Creep is a truly unique album in its concept. The concept album saw an explosion in 2009 with albums being released by Mastodon, The Decemberists, The Antlers and many others. But the idea of what an actual concert album is was lost I feel. The Antlers and The Decemberists obviously hit the nail right on the head with albums that played out like operas while Mastodon and 30 Seconds To Mars either had a storyline that was so confusing it was impossible to make sense out of it or they just based an album on a single idea, which is not the pure definition of a concept album. Fishboy not only has a single, easy to follow storyline but they have a comic that goes along with each track. It doesn’t get much more straight forward than that.

Concept albums are one of the most difficult things for a band to pull off successfully. A band has to struggle with not only coming up with an interesting and entertaining story but has to write music that conveys both the emotion and the tempo of the story all while not being overly repetitive or having each song sound forced just for the soul purpose of delivering the message and moving the plot forward. It’s obvious that Fishboy went into the production of Classic Creeps with the plan to just have fun. The storyline is ridiculous but at the same time it’s very entertaining to hear how each individual person’s life becomes intertwined in the end in this far fetched adventure.

Take a listen to the full album below and when you’re ready head over here to purchase the LP in one of many different media packages.