Southeast Engine

Although Southeast Engine hail from a lesser-known Athens — the cozy college town in Ohio, not the musical enclave in Georgia or the cosmopolitan capital in Greece — the band's music pays homage to several locations, touching upon the twangy melancholia of the nearby Appalachians as well as the once-thriving indie scene in Dayton, Ohio, where several of the bandmates were raised. The group's earliest incarnation was launched in 1999 by two Ohio University students, singer/guitarist Adam Remnant and drummer Leo DeLuca. With Remnant and DeLuca remaining the only constant members, Southeast Engine welcomed additional musicians into the fold, including keyboardist Michael Lachman, bassist Matthew Box, and guitarists Josh Antonuccio and Adam Torres. Southeast Engine's self-released debut, Love Is a Murder, a Mystery of Sorts, appeared in 2003, followed two years later by Coming to Terms with Gravity. Misra Records reissued Gravity in 2007, kicking off a long partnership between the band and the North Carolina-based label. The partnership continued with A Wheel Within a Wheel, also released in 2007, and 2009's From the Forest to the Sea, which earned the band some of its highest praise to date. For 2011's Canary, Southeast Engine began dabbling with Appalachian music, focusing most of the songs on a fictional family living in a mountain town during the Great Depression.