A tropical depression is the first of three stages of a hurricane, a fact I discovered after seeing the band with the same name at the Casbah. The duo, originally from San Diego, CA, opened for Chairlift and as they set up I wondered where the correlation between the two bands would be...and found it in the electronics. Tropical Depression is another band who plays to a track. There was a bass player and a guy on acoustic guitar, who also sang and monitored the track machine. It started off pretty rocky; some of the crowd was heckling the band, and at one point during the second song I thought the guitar player/vocalist hit some wrong chords, and both guys got off beat with the track. I was almost nervous for the duo, but in the end they came out strong. Around the third song they either gained confidence or just started playing better songs, but it was tighter, and I could see the vision they had for their music. It is very ambient, atmosphere type stuff, where the vocals call for holding one note for a long time, creating an almost droning effect. And while some might call this type of music innovative or cutting edge, I still think it is borderline cheating. It’s like taking the test at home and then bringing it to class. It might make for good background music at a café or lounge, but the live show doesn’t quite translate, nor hold my attention, which was good because the set was short.