SPOTLIGHT ON: weaklazyliar

"Heavymetalfolksingermusic" is what singer/guitarist/songwriter Gerlinda Grimes jokingly calls weaklazyliar's intelligent folk-rock, but adds, "We're too commercial to hang with the cool alternative scene, and we're too alternative to fit into the slick, fake commercial scene."

Proving her point, the band's 2002 album, The November Diaries, told a focused story with the songs featuring intermingling characters. The band's new release, songs for any occasion, is designed to be 11 different snapshots of various subjects and themes. The first song, "broken windows in factories," evolved from a feeling Grimes had back in 1999. "We were in the studio recording tracks for our first real album," Grimes says. "I really felt that we were doing what we were meant to be doing. Even though it was a 'small' thing, an independent release that 99.99 percent of the world would never hear, it was something."

Toward the end of the album, the breezy cut "flight attendant-shaped hot air balloon" is probably the most purely fun song that the band has released. "The lyrics are, obviously, not deep at all, but they kind of represent how I'm feeling about being in 'the music business' right now," Grimes says. "It's not my scene. I love the image of a big flight attendant-shaped hot air balloon, reassuring everyone that it's all right, even as she's going down in flames."

Grimes says that, while she feels the music business is going down like a lead zeppelin, she hopes something amazing rises from the ashes. "But even if there were zero hope of ever getting anywhere, our choices are: Give up or continue," she says. "Making the choice to continue as an unsigned band might mean that most of the world will never know we exist, but it doesn't make the act of creating something any less worthwhile."

weaklazyliar has an album release party Thurs., Feb. 10, at 10 High.