D.C.'s music scene has bred a number of sounds over the past 20 years. From the straight-edge hardcore of Minor Threat to the Dismemberment Plan's impossible-to-pigeonhole indie rock, the District's grounds have given life to hundreds of bands and possibly even more genres.
Frodus tattooed its history at a high-water mark only to drown in personal prerogatives. Yet, as the tide has slowly drifted out to sea, Frodus' weather-torn imprint has been revived in the form of Decahedron.
Shelby Cinca and Jason Hamacher, the vocal/guitars and drums of Frodus, joined forces with Joe Lally, half of Fugazi's rhythm section, in or around 2002 and issued an initial three-song CDEP on Lovitt Records under the name the Black Sea. However, it would take another eight months of recording, slotted in the midst of family time, massages, the recording of other bands and a name change for legal reasons for Decahedron to configure the pieces of its debut long player, "Diconnection_Imminent."
According to Hamacher, "The recording was way different" than recording with Frodus.
"All the Frodus stuff we did in friends' studios, and towards the end of the Frodus career Shelby [Cinca] started recording bands, Joe [Lally] had a family and [with] me going to massage school, we couldn't really record in a normal studio for ten days straight so we just kind of broke it up over the course of eight months," Hamacher said.
For the past 20 days, Decahedron hit the road in its new van, a treasure from the guys in Living Sacrifice - yes, the Christian Death Metal band that doesn't seem to understand the paradox.
"The first ten days were with Engine Down, and then the last ten days we were going to be alone," said Hamacher.
Unfortunately, a busted transmission and the rest of the pitfalls standard on most overworked engines led to the cancellation of four shows in Dallas, Stateville, Ark., Lawrence, Kan. and Des Moines, Iowa.
Regardless, Hamacher believes that Decahedron was able to get its message out.
"We went out to kind of let people know that we were a band and we did it," he said. "Now we're just going from there"
