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Much like Guided by Voices, Times New Viking are a noisy, lo-fi indie rock band from Ohio who made the leap from the long-running indie Siltbreeze Records to the higher-profile Matador label. Unlike Guided by Voices, whose hissy, distortion-heavy sound masked a knack for traditional '60s-influenced pop hooks and surreal lyrical wordplay, this Columbus-based trio favors a more punk-derived sound and minimalist, deliberately repetitive lyrics. Times New Viking (the band name being an obscure and meaningless pun on the name of the popular typeface Times New Roman) formed in Columbus in 2004, when art school students Adam Elliott, Beth Murphy, and Jared Phillips spontaneously decided to form a band while hanging out in a local rock club. Murphy and Phillips, who had no musical training between them, took over keyboards and guitar respectively, while the marginally more skilled Elliott played drums. (Elliott and Murphy both sing, often together though rarely in harmony.) The band's debut ...
