Telegram is one of those bands that you want to keep to yourself. That you listen to like an impossible secret. They are one of those bands that, once you hear them, you take a protective ownership of. Like other groups before them who have made incredible music well beneath the mainstream radar, Telegram cultivates that rare paradox of a band who belongs to a very devoted group of fans that don't want to see them on MTV, but will insist on playing their music for anyone they come in contact with. Fans who will sit across from you on the floor of their apartment, pour you a drink, and make sure that you hear a barely-whispered lyric. Fans who thrive on pointing out a subtle string melody playing off in the background. People who will champion the band fervently to anyone who will listen, but will also make sure that you actually get what you are hearing. That you truly understand how good it is. If you know anything about the band, it is easy to see why fans react to them they way that they do. Vocalist/Guitarist Troy Bieser is the kind of presence you can't help but be drawn into. One part Nick Drake, one part Paul Westerberg, he is the kind of songwriter that seems to read and then telegraph your innermost thoughts to everyone else in the room. Upright Bassist Rob Henson is equally as riveting. Coaxing melodies you've never heard before out of the instrument one moment, moving your entire body with a criminal groove the next, he is absolutely hypnotizing. Drummer Jamie Shepard sits deep in some lunatic pocket, at times playing with maracas, at times playing with only his hands. It's not an understatement to say he can go from chill to brutal in the course of one song. It is truly cathartic. The music is confessional. It is as arresting as it is romantic. Sometimes it conjures a kind of voodoo, I swear. If you see them play their songs Kerosene Girl or Precious Thing you'll know what I mean. It is hearing music in a pure and unapologetic form. It is brash and it is religious: somewhere between starlight lullabies and The Stones' Exile on Main Street. Between Chet Baker and David Bowie. Shakers crepitate over a ringy snare drum, the upright throbs underneath, a guitar peels out in sharp, crazed electric belltone-the vocals cry out ". . . I want to be the reason you don't sleep at night/ I want to be the circles underneath your dark eyes . . ." The room goes into that other place. People watch without moving. Rob pulls out a bow and starts slashing a maniacal melody of otherworldly cries as Troy and Jamie close their eyes. It's goose-bump stuff. And that's why you start to get protective. That's when you begin to feel that you are part of something special that might not be meant for everyone. That should be nourished and kept close. That is unique and separate from what, on the current landscape, can seem like a tired musical treadmill. And yet there you are: standing among a group of strangers at a bar/club/party talking about bands, talking about music and having to tell everyone about these guys. Needing to interject. Compelled to chime in with "This band Telegram . . . you have to check them out. They are SCARY good." You write the website down on a napkin. You tell them about the next show. You invite them out to your car to play this music for them. Or you bring them back to your apartment, pour them a drink, sit on the floor across from them and say: "Listen to this . . . just listen. . . " And they always do. And you always see them at the next show.