Consonant is an alternative rock

Alternative rock

Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

 group formed by singer/guitarist Clint Conley

Clint Conley

Clinton J. Conley is an American rock and roll musician from Boston, Massachusetts.He is probably best known as a co-founder of Mission of Burma. He played bass guitar, occasional guitar, and wrote and sang some of the group's best-known songs, such as "That's When I Reach For My Revolver" and...

 in 2001.

In the late 1970s, Conley cofounded Mission of Burma

Mission of Burma

Mission of Burma is an American post-punk band formed in Boston, Massachusetts in 1979. The band was formed by Roger Miller , Clint Conley , Peter Prescott and Martin Swope...

, a pioneering Boston post punk group. After mostly dropping out of music for the 1980s and 1990s, Conley began writing songs, often with input from poet Holly Anderson.

Conley formed Consonant in 2001, along with guitarist Chris Brokaw

Chris Brokaw

Chris Brokaw is an American musician, mostly known for his work with the bands Come and Codeine.While studying at Oberlin College, Brokaw met many people who became figures on the American indie rock scene of the 1990s, among them Stephen Immerwahr, who formed Codeine with Brokaw, as well as...

, bassist Winston Braman, and drummer Matt Kadane (previously of Bedhead). Though notably less experimental than Mission of Burma, critic Mark Deming declares Consonant is "a fine return to the spotlight for Conley".