Kevin Bronson on February 3rd, 2009

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Aushua singer-guitarist Nathan Gammill still has trouble hearing out of his left ear, and his world might still seem a little topsy-turvy, but the frontman of the promising Orange County four-piece is soldiering on as the memories recede of the severe beating he sustained at the hands of two men outside a bar in Orange in early September. “Right now,” he says, “I’m just kinda going with it.”

Gammill’s injuries included a skull fracture, a broken eye socket and a ruptured eardrum. He was back onstage with bandmates Eric, Lee and Phil Neujahr about a month later, albeit not at 100%. Performing the late set Monday at the Silverlake Lounge, though, he showed little ill effects, his powerful vocals cutting through the quartet’s big guitar swells.

“It’s changed my perspective on things,” he says. “Now I really want to hear just beautiful things. I can’t watch TV. I can’t waste my time. … I was having this post-traumatic stress thing for a while, but overall now I’m just more low-key.”

He’s also disappointed the band suffered a setback; Aushua was due to record its debut album in December. “We had a little momentum at that point, but it kinda disappeared,” he says.

Not entirely. “No Harm Done,” off the band’s last EP, is still a favorite on KROQ-FM’s “Locals Only” show, and the new songs the band debuted Monday lived up to its 2008 EP’s promise. Aushua is ready to begin recording that album, and has a busy live schedule to boot: The band plays the Knitting Factory’s Alterknit Lounge every Wednesday this month and will assume the Monday night residency in March at the Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa.

||| Stream: “No Harm Done” [audio:http://www.mediafire.com/file/zyzzje0kmni/Aushua_No Harm Done.mp3]