THE Antivillains

Music From The Heartland / Midwest Nostagia

SOUNDS LIKE:  

If Neil Young and Joni Mitchell were one person

Patsy Cline listening to Yo La Tango

Velvet Underground kissing Gillian Welch.

CONTACT:

theantivillains@gmail.com

Lyrics, Videos, Photos and Blog

TheAntiVillains.com

ANTIVILLAIN

To me it can mean, that in the end, even your best intentions end up hurting those you were actually trying to help or love. 

It’s the opposite of an Anti Hero, someone who may have somewhat ulterior motives, but ends up on the good side of everyone. So with this in mind, we present an extremely personal style of music. Our songs central around lyrics that tell the story of the good guy gone wrong, love never won but always lost, towns sucked into themselves choking on the rusting infrastructure of a once thriving industry, feelings of never being able to quite get to that place we all thought we’d be at by now when we were kids together. Growing up in the same small town as a group, we all have different perspectives of the same story. All of us in the Antivillains have a heart for travel. By touring, we are able to add to the existing narrative of that community’s culture while sharing our own. Our songs are changing as we change, our style progresses as we do as a group. We are learning everyday how to take our mistakes and live with them. 

Antivillains are Ben Cohen, Sam Woldenberg, Peter Kharchenko and Sarah Cohen, all currently residents of Toledo, Ohio and alumni of the University of Toledo. 

— Sarah

2009 self released Album

"So Much For Romance" 

Press

Based in Brooklyn and Toledo, the dapper Antivillains make a lovely sound—a mellow, sweeping take on pop and old-time jazz. If there’s any justice, the songs from their album, So Much for Romance, will find radio airplay. -Time Out New York

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Heavy on the harmonies and more than mild on the jazz, the Antivillains is a trio led by the brother-sister team Sarah and Ben Cohen. The group crafts its bittersweet sounds in Brooklyn, New York and Toledo, Ohio. On the group’s recently released album So Much For Romance, the siblings paint bucolic Midwestern soundscapes, and mourn lost romances on tracks like “This Only Sound”. With jazz percussionist Sam Woldenberg on board, The Antivillains may be the only ones in the Rust Belt to play music that hovers between haunting pop-rock and moody jazz. The candlelit basement setting for Saturday night’s show at The Sycamore should set the scene nicely for the duo’s melancholy melodies. - WNYC SoundCheck

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Listening to So Much For Romance so many times in both ways helps me understand exactly how much mastery The Antivillains put into the album. The Antivillains’ sound is beautiful, memorable, and above all, now that I’ve heavily examined it, ingenious – and So Much For Romance is no different. - Sarra Sedghi, Blue Indian

“Remember that time the Cardigan’s broke into the Velvet underground’s heroin stash and fell asleep winding up a music box and tinkering on a toy piano? The Antivillains do. In an age where girl-boy pop duos are the hippest of the hip, The Antivillains have a leg up on ‘em all with the eerily similar, hauntingly gorgeous melodies of the brother-sister duo of Ben and Sarah Cohen.The Antivillains songs, providing a simultaneous feeling of fragile, yet well stacked musical composition.” - Ryan Bunch music writer Toledo.com