Lansdowne

It is late on a Sunday night as Lansdowne, one of Boston's most promising and successful young acts, puts the finishing touches on their sophomore release, "Burn This For Your Friends." Huddled around a cell phone on speaker, the band cannot believe what is happening: After forming just over one year ago in January 2006, one of the biggest radio stations in the world is featuring their music on its Top 30 countdown. The DJ makes mention of their upcoming Boston show, which would become Lansdowne's 6th straight sold out hometown offering, and talks about their debut record which would sell out only weeks later. All of this comes only weeks after MTV featured three Lansdowne songs on one of its hit shows and another major radio station named the rock sensation as "One of Boston's Best Bands."

Four guys who dropped everything. No label. No agents. No problem.

Lansdowne is Jon Ricci (vocals), Shaun Lichtenstein (guitars), Tom Sargent (bass), and Glenn Mungo (drums), proof that a Do-It-Yourself operation can flourish. Having played over 150 shows since forming just over a year ago, the band has shared the stage with countless nationals including giants OK Go, Cute Is What We Aim For, and Wyclef Jean. Their influences are all over the map, from rock to punk to hardcore, but somehow the sound settles somewhere in between the catchiest songs from bands like Maroon 5, Fall Out Boy, and The Police.

Having already completed numerous regional tours, Lansdowne embarks on their first national tour, a self-booked 24-city journey that has been featured in Alternative Press and on Absolutepunk.net, two of the scene's strongest hubs for fan information and news.

The goal is to showcase "Burn This For Your Friends," a 5-song offering with tracks that push through and beyond the cookie-cutter love songs and woe-is-me drama. Priced at only one dollar and with fans encouraged to burn it for everyone they know, the record is filled with a style unique to mainstream rock, apparent in singer Jon Ricci's soulful melodies and guitarist Shaun Lichtenstein's edgy, melodic riffs. "Just Let Go" stands out as the head-bopping ultra-infectious single to a record that pulls no punches when inspiring its listener to throw the whole thing on repeat.

But what really sets the band apart is Lansdowne's live show. Radio-ready melodies and instrumentation married to a beautiful disaster of chaotic acrobatics and what seems like a hurricane of action, somehow makes sense as the band refuses to look and perform like every other mainstream act out there. Mute the show and you would think theirs was a hardcore extravaganza, turn the volume back up and you've got some of the catchiest music around.