The Host EP "Receive" Review Category: Music BY MIKE BREEN · THE HOST -- RECEIVE This Cincinnati four-piece became one of the "you gotta hear these guys" new bands of 2006, thanks to impressive live shows and song leaks on their MySpace page. The Host's debut release, the five-song Receive, lives up to the hype. Featuring former members of Levelnine and Dropshadow (both of whom displayed a more far-reaching, imaginative take on Hard Rock than most of their local peers), The Host make sweeping, majestic Rock music with hints of Metal and Prog. Singer Chris Charlton has some pretty impressive pipes, guiding the band's songs with a soaring, elastic voice that recalls Cedric Bixler of The Mars Volta, while the echoing, cascading sheets of Tim Kindberg's Edge-like guitar-playing evokes the depth and ambient textures of groups like Deftones and Tool. The rhythm section is equally effective, providing a big and dynamic backdrop. The songs on Receive twist and crawl, avoiding rote verse/chorus/verse structuring for the most part to create something more engaging and stream-of-conscious. While inherently powerful, songs like "On to the May" and "She Came with the Frame" have a hypnotic magnetism, as riffs wash over your ears like crashing waves and Charlton's voice sounds like a Siren, with its memorable, high-ceiling melodicism. "Red Smalltalk and the Lava Rose" follows a similar tact, but is infused with a tweaked verse section that takes an almost Ska-like rhythm and turns it inside out. Receive contains some really absorbing material that already seems fully-realized and, overall, it feels far from a first effort. I can't wait to hear where they take it from here (I might not have to wait long; another EP is already in the works). Grade: A