Quiet and unassuming, Trouble Books have this horrible habit of getting lost in the chatter of the crowd when they open for better known acts. Yet, if you put down the Pabst and the cell phone, and stop talking for a moment, you’ll notice a small group of dedicated listeners at the front of the stage, and you’ll hear Keith Freund, Linda Lejsovka, Mike Tolan, and whomever else happens to be a Trouble Book for the evening, spin some of the most charming and carefully crafted tales of every day life backed by fragile strands of sound, whispering through the speakers. On “Shaky Science,” from their latest self-released record, The United Colors of Trouble Books, Freund and his band perfectly capture the spirit of a lazy day, as slowly strummed guitar and ambient rays of sound peer through the windows like the first rays of sunshine on a do nothing Sunday, while he plainly requests, “It would be super cool if you decided to stay/I don’t have anything I have to do since yesterday.” Then, just as the sun is about to brighten the room, and perhaps, bring them to action, it recedes back behind the clouds of Northeast Ohio’s ever present gray.
