Deaf Poets Are Looking Good, Showing Off Their "Diversity and Range"

Indie garage rockers Deaf Poets may have been born in Miami Beach, but the noise this sonic duo emits is anything but tropical.

Featuring bombastic guitar strums and blaring snare-drum smashes, this powerful, bluesy two-piece emits sounds more fitting for a grimy hole in the wall in Memphis. Nature of the beast, lots of White Stripes comparisons come the Deaf Poets' way, but that's a lazy assessment. Composed of lead singer/guitarist Sean Wouters and drummer Nicolas Espinosa, the Deaf Poets deliver a brash hodgepodge of sounds that pays homage to raucous '90s grunge heavyweights with a wallop of minimalist, Sonic Youth-like no-wave.

After a two-year recording process, the band is finally ready to release its debut full-length, 4150, and subsequently, to peddle the album's wares with a ten-date East Coast swing. "We are excited to see how the rest of the country reacts to the album," said Espinosa. "This record represents our diversity and range."

Recorded mostly in an empty, rundown house on Miami Beach that belongs to Wouters' parents (house number 4150, of course), the album certainly has a DIY flair to it. Don't get us wrong: The effort is gritty and primitive in all the right places, but overall, the outcome is top-shelf. One listen to the blazing, punch-in-the-gut distortion on "Can't Breathe," for instance, in which Wouters demonstrates an epic Kurt Cobain-like catharsis, and listeners will get the gist: Deaf Poets mean business.

Catch them as they head out on their nationwide tour at Respectable Street's Flaunt Thursdays with psych rockers Froth.

Deaf Poets. With Froth. 10 p.m. Thursday, May 8, at Respectable Street, 518 Clematis St., West Palm Beach. Entrance is free. Call 561-832-9999, or visit respectablestreet.com.

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