Tag Archives: rock

June 26, 2017 · 11:47 am

Highly Anticipated: New Album From The Technicolors

Phoenix-based band the Technicolors’ forthcoming album Metaphysical (out July 7) focuses on “a void”—the one between where its frontman, Brennan Smiley, is, and where he’d like to go. Today we are pleased to premiere “Impostor!,” a single from that very LP, which seems to encapsulate this concept. “The song is about everyone’s constant need of explanation for everything,” says Smiley. “Everyone wants you to explain yourself, tell why you did something a certain way, as opposed to just feelin’ it and letting it move you, or maybe challenge you to think differently.”

Fittingly for summer, “Impostor!” is a roll-your-windows-down tune. The guitar intro has a ’90s rock grittiness and bite that sets the tone, and next comes Smiley’s Julian Casablancas-esque voice—a softer swoon that creates a needed contrast for the song to flow (and makes it ideal to leave on repeat). Smiley says the track started simply with a guitar riff, courtesy of guitarist and vocalist Sean Silverman. The lyrics came later when Smiley was sitting in a unair-conditioned room in the thick of an Arizona summer. He watched an early-2000s “Magic Tricks Revealed” documentary in the guest room of the studio the where the band was recording and realized he would have to sing “Impostor!” the next morning. He didn’t have any lyrics—yet. “I started literally sweating out the most ridiculous lines ever,” recalls Smiley. “The last line of the second verse is about making an elephant disappear.”

Smiley wrote the lyrics in about five minutes, and the track’s guitar riffs ultimately powered Metaphysical as a whole. “We plugged the acoustic guitars straight into this old Neve console that mixed some pretty legendary records, and cranked it till it sounded like what you would imagine if Raiden started a band with Johnny Cage,” says Smiley. “I think we stumbled on some wild guitar sounds that have since inspired us to go even further down those roads.” – Interview Magazine

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November 1, 2016 · 2:02 pm

Byron Nash & Plan B: ” A Band Born Out of Pure Friendship and Love For Making Music”

Photo: afayepr.com

Photo: afayepr.com

Byron Nash, a Pittsburgh based musician, has been doing this music thing for a long time. While playing lead guitar of the band Formula412, he worked on writing and recording some ideas and keeping them on the “back-burner” you could say. This “back-burner” was called ‘Plan B’.

After collecting over 10 years of songs and ideas, Nash took some music production courses and eventually started his own music company, BNDEEPendent Music. He and his friend Evan Thorsen had been jamming and hanging out together for years; when they finally decided to play some of their songs live in 2014. After great reception, they were asked the following year to play at Kayafest, a restaurant that was having it’s 20th Year Anniversary block party. They put together a makeshift band of talented musicians and again were met with great praise…enough that they finally decided to go forth full throttle as a band.

All they had to do was come up with their name. It was suggested that their name simply be ‘Nash’, but Byron felt weird about it being just his name. So — ta-da!!! Byron Nash & Plan B it is!

And they’ve got a little bit of something for everyone, too! The band is  “a well-balanced fusion of rocking dual-guitars, funk-and-soul, straight-forward and emotional vocals, simple songwriting, and a little bit of jam-band and fusion mixed in there.”

The band is having a very special release party for their very first EP, The Late Bloomer, this Friday at The Funhouse at Mr. Smalls.

Check out the Facebook event HERE

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September 2, 2016 · 2:49 pm

Rock Out With Them Bruins

them bruins

Australian raucous rock group Them Bruins will released their US debut EP on August 26 titled No One Wants To Dance With Them Bruins via Old Flame Records. Fashioned into shape in a Melbourne warehouse, their new EP features a new batch of calculated killer hooks combined with their punk rock ethos as a springboard. A wider variety of tunes from their previous material, the songs go back and forth from new found fat fuzzy vibes with emotionally charged lyrics to their trademark jangly guitar sound that pairs so sweetly with a venomous scream along.

Check out their single “Barrenlands” which Baeble described, “This high-octane, ass-kicker of a track takes the fuzzed-out tone of 90s grunge and mixes it in with the swagger and balls-deep confidence of 70s punk rock.”
Them Bruins are the rock ‘n roll itch that had to be scratched by Joel Griffith and Ben Woodmason. After pulling in Ben’s brother Tim and friend Jimmy Campbell, they swiftly recorded their debut EP released in Australia in July 2012. Full of turbo charged hooks and short sharp shouty sing-a-longs, God Bless Them Bruins was released via GAGA Digital with lead single “Black Widow” featured in rotation on Triple J radio with follow-up “Shock Rockets” featured on JB Hi-Fi’s commercial that launched their music streaming platform.
Embarking on several trips up and down the east coast and jumping on support slots to the likes of Calling All Cars, Children Collide, The Bellrays, and Kingswood, Them Bruins played for the following 12 months before entering the studio to record their next offering Outrun The Future released in Australia in September 2013 which was swiftly added to Triple J rotation, held the #1 spot on the Amrap Airit singles chart for four weeks, and has since had over 55,000 plays on Spotify. The band continued to take their 70’s punk showmanship on the road which was descriped by AU’s The Dwarf as “If Peter Garrett fronted Nirvana during their In Utero years, Them Bruins would be the sweat mopped off the floorboards and left to ferment in the bucket backstage.”

Track List:
01) Something Beautiful
02) Heading For The Harrows
03) Walk A Line
04) Coming Out Backwards
05) Ready To Know
06) Outrun The Future
07) Barrenlands

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June 24, 2016 · 3:34 pm

Newest Love: Beware of Darkness

Photo: Cara Robbins

Photo: Cara Robbins

“Imagine the crunch of The White Stripes and the sheer raunch of Prince and you’d be somewhere close to Beware Of Darkness.” – CLASH Mag

LA-based Beware of Darkness reveal album release details today for their forthcoming LP Are You Real? out on September 16th via Bright Antenna Records.  Fans who pre-order album will receive singles “Dope” and “Muthafucka” instantly.

Are You Real? is the band’s biggest and boldest statement yet.  The 12-track collection serves as an urgent call to arms not only for frontman Kyle Nicolaides, but for the band’s sound as well.  The music ushers the rebirth of a sound that is as refreshing as it is addictive, and goes much deeper than riffs.

The album illustrates how a rock star on the rise fought uncertainty and disillusionment to avoid flaming out. And, more importantly, how he has come through the other side revitalized and focused, and with the best songs of his young career.

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Are You Real? Tracklist
Muthafucka
Blood, Sex, Violence, & Murder
Dope
Summer Daze
Tell Me This Is Fate
Are You Real?
Angel
Surrender
Hieroglyphics
Sugar In The Raw
Beware
Delirium

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June 7, 2016 · 1:34 pm

Newest Love: Ancient Cities – “Marmalade”

ancient cities

Following their well-received self-titled debut album in 2014, Ancient Cities returns to bring us Supermoon Blackout, out 7/1 and available to pre-order now. After being invited to play Newport Folk Festival in 2015 by Converse, the band began recording at Converse Rubber Tracks Studio in Boston and Sioux Sioux Studio before taking the record to frontman Stephen Warwick’s home studio to wrap up. What emerged is both raw and organic in the ways you’d expect and enjoy from and fuzzed out rock album like this.

They’ve expanded on a sound that is lively, warm, angsty, and ferocious, and the new addition of organ/synth sounds have only added to the party. Supermoon Blackout will have you swooning, dancing silly, jumping around wildly, or nodding your head and tapping your steering wheel from one song to another. The band is putting one foot in front of the other along the road of psychedelic folk rock laid before them. Each stone placed with road-tested material has landed them features in Vanity Fair, The Village Voice, as well as live video sessions with Paste Magazine and Live & Breathing. Creatively and otherwise, Ancient Cities is following this road to success- polishing their evolving tastes but not straying far from their fuzz rock n’ roll, psyched out pop roots.

Songs like “Sunburn” take you back to the swooning melodies and harmonies of 60’s rock ‘n’ roll, while “Actress” is an instant party starter.  “Midnight” gives you a sense that you’re coming back to life- or realizing that somewhere along the road you lost yourself and just noticed you’re back. “Marmalade” captures the essence of the album musically as an ode to getting lost in rock n roll textures, swooning vocals, and a fuzzed out guitar solo.

Warwick gained acclaim in 2010 with his solo album Talking Machine, receiving local notice as best song-writer and landing on Shuffle Magazine’s top 10 list for albums of that year. Ancient Cities became his new musical outlet that gave him freedoms to break out from lofi alt-folk and pick up an electric guitar with no reservations or apologies. This shift in perspective brought about some foot-stomping rock n’ roll that comes from a thoughtful desire to move you. Supermoon Blackout is the kind of music that beckons you put down your cell phone to just dance, listen, or watch.

Supermoon Blackout
Track List:
1. Marmalade
2. Phases
3. Sunburn
4. Luck
5. Time Traveler
6. Supermoon Blackout
7. All Rise
8. Actress
9. Midnight
10. Sorceress
11. Losing My Mind

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March 23, 2016 · 10:40 am

Check ‘Em Out: The High Learys

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The High Learys are a four piece inspired rock band from Perth, Western Australia consisting of Jamie Turner (lead vocals/bass), Michael Nutt (keys/vocals), Matt Williams (guitar) and Mitchell J Benson (drums). Forming in 2011, they have released one album, and a number of singles. In 2013 the band went over to Europe to play shows in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and England. In August 2014 the band went back into Poons Head Studios to record their next single “Clear My Mind” with producer Rob Grant. It was then released on 7″ vinyl through Soundflat Records in late October. Shortly after it’s release the single was used in both a Bose Headphones and Sportscraft commercial.

During November and December 2014 the band embarked on a second European tour, playing shows in Germany, Spain and England. Their single “Clear My Mind” charted at No. 1 in the AMRAP charts in 2014. the band have released multiple records and have two European Tours under their belt, 2016 finds them causing quite a stir overseas as well as on their home soil.

cabinet

“Cabinet” by THE HIGH LEARYS will be released 25th of March 2016 — listen to it now, right here!

The making of new single, “Cabinet”, was the first time the band had ventured into recording entirely by themselves. Produced and engineered by the band’s keyboard player Mike Nutt and recorded over the summer of early 2015 at various houses and studios. The finishing touches where added at Blackbird Studios with Dave Parkin.

“We’d been talking for a while about recording ourselves so we decided to knuckle down and give it go. We found that doing it this way gave us a lot more creative control in our recording process and enabled us to take our time with tracking to make sure it was exactly how we all wanted it to sound,” says the band.

“Cabinet” explores the insecurities of a young mind. Someone who feels lost in their ways, but at the same time shares the burdens of adolescents with their other half.

“Cabinet” by THE HIGH LEARYS will be released 25th of March 2016 — listen to it now, right here!

 

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February 17, 2016 · 1:50 pm

Listen: The Smoking Bells – “Good Woman”

smoking bells

New album Sleeptalk out March 4

From The Smoking Bells:
I’ve always had an intense fascination with dreaming and sleeping and this is how the new Smoking Bells’ record was born. Throughout my younger life, I consistently experienced what is known in technical terms, as sleep paralysis. Yet, throughout history and countless cultures, it’s a phenomenon we called “the hag,” in Newfoundland, “succubus” in medieval folklore, and “Kanashibari” in Japan.
While frightening, this experience was intriguing in that it seemed to bridge some divide between the sleeping and waking worlds, the subconscious and the conscious. An apt metaphor, especially when embracing the artistic process: conjuring ideas from nothing to something.

Listen here: The Smoking Bells – “Good Woman”

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November 4, 2015 · 2:59 pm

Newest Love: Paradise Animals – “Monday Morning”

Paradise

Monday morning I received an email from these guys…with their song “Monday Morning”!!! Coincidence. Nope. Not at all.

And this song is awesome!

The single is from the band’s LP Day Bed, and it’s their very first full length. The album was recorded and produced by the whole band in both Northern Ontario and Toronto.

From the band:
Day Bed is the place we go to rest in the daylight. A place where memories wash over us; a place where we pause and think about life. It’s a collection of songs that highlights the warmth and happiness of family and childhood, the heartbreak of relationships, and the randomness of social life in the 21st century.
Check out the video:
And look out for Day Bed on November 13th!

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April 20, 2015 · 10:11 am

Palaye Royale – “Get Higher”

PR

Check out Palaye Royale, a fashion art rock, Las Vegas based band that’s currently unsigned. They won MTV’s Musical March Madness, beating out Coldplay, Linkin Park and U2. Their song “Get Higher” is also featured on a Samsung Galaxy commercial which you can check out below, followed by the music video for the song in it’s entirety.

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February 25, 2015 · 4:43 pm

Newest Love: Jet Black Alley Cat

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Check out this awesome band of hot guys from Nashville, previously known as Tell Romeo I Hate Him. Would you believe me if I said they’re currently unsigned? I know….whaaaat? Surely, that won’t last.

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