Eclectic and amazing genre smashers This Way To the Egress have already announced their new album, their sixth, Retrospectiva! on Halloween 2020.The band has teamed up with Ghost Cult today to share their new single “Gravedigger”, lovely bop and mediation on the apocalyptic end-times vibe of 2020, or really the last few years in the world. The band will certainly draw comparisons musical chameleons and misfits from Art rock, Cabaret Punks, and World Music. However, its’s on repeat listens the band’s idiosyncratic special sauce is revealed, a synapse shattering portend of their expanding sound and potential for greatness. The rising band from Pennsylvania has already appeared at festivals alongside major names like M.I.A., Cypress Hill & The Specials and shared stages with Squirrel Nut Zippers, World/Inferno Friendship Society, Aurelio Voltaire, Red Elvises, and The Dresden Dolls, including being Amanda Palmer’s backing band at her New Year’s Eve Bash. The new album was recorded and produced by Dan Shatzky at his NYC Vibromonk studio, a mecha for the NYC gypsy/klezmer-punk scene with credits including Gogol Bordello, Balkan Beat Box, and Firewater. Hang on to someone you love for dear life, and jam out to “Gravedigger” right now!
Black Metal has become such a multi-faceted entity with insane levels of creativity, particularly in recent years with bands pushing extremities and dynamics to all new limits. Amongst a fast-growing Dutch scene, the trio of Laster have been a shining beacon of mesmeric and near absurdist songcraft. An unshackled approach that has hit an even greater peak of greatness on latest effort Het Wassen Oog (Prophecy Productions).Continue reading →
Ghost Cult is pumped to debut the brand new video from The Earthly Frames, ‘She Waits For Yesterday’. The track comes from the new album Light Reading, releasing tomorrow January 11th, 2019. This delicious piece of off the wall alt-pop/post-punk weirdness comes from the brain of solo auteur Gabriel Walsh, for which The Earthly Frames is just one of many guises worn by Walsh in twenty-five years of art making. In addition to the hook-laden track of droning synths, glitchy samples, and buzzing bass; B movie aficionados may recognize the Invasion of the Bee Girls clip, now in the public domain as the visual component. Check it out! Continue reading →
Recent years have seen UK progressive art rockers The Pineapple Thief hit a sweet spot of a niche between explorative and catchy songwriting. With the likes of All The Wars and Magnolia leaning either side respectively, 2016’s Your Wilderness straddled both thresholds and resulted in their most successful album and, arguably at that point, their creative peak. Poised for their biggest European tour, both in terms of dates and venue capacities, their latest album, Dissolution (all Kscope), once again continues this trend.Continue reading →
Nearly twenty years into this twenty first century of ours, and retro is once again the chicest tone in town. Fuzzed, bluesy guitars, seventies licks and threads, and an aching earnestness for a sound of yesteryear is where the coolest of cats are chilling. And down such alleyways we find Belgian quartet Black Mirrors and their impressive full length debut Look Into The Black Mirror (Napalm).Continue reading →
In the era of DIY, the music industry has seen a lot of success from self-made acts. When you can run your own record label and put out a very highly praised debut, the bar is set pretty high for anything that follows. The UK’s own Asylums have done just that. They released their debut in 2016 with rave reviews and two years later they are following up with Alien Human Emotions (Cool Thing). This sophomore drop from the Southend natives uplifts the alt./art rock genre in a direction that intrigues a younger audience from the second it’s turned on.Continue reading →
It is often found that from tremendous despair comes profound and reflective art. It is such a tragedy that seems to hang over the current works of one Mariusz Duda; that being the unexpected death of Riverside guitarist and close friend Piotr Grudziński in 2016. Outside of Riverside, Duda took his own personal grief to creating last years phenomenal Lunatic Soul release, Fractured (Kscope), a release that saw the ambient outfit to new experimental heights across an emotional spectrum from pure desolation to showing signs of hopefulness.Continue reading →
Over the course of, up until now, nine studio albums Norwegian band Gazpacho have resided in a musical plane entirely of their own, and have consistently shown to be one of most captivating and spellbinding bands of today as a result. Trying to define their sound or vision aside from describing them as an art/avant-garde rock outfit is near impossible with each passing release giving different movements and colours; what is usually a definite however is that the music will be densely packed, complex and often shows an embrace for the dark and melancholic; either vividly or perhaps beneath the surface. Continue reading →
In Part 2 of chat with Michael Del Pizzo of Sunflower Dead, we discussed what is on tap next for the up and coming band, cover songs, writing album number three, and how do they see the climate right now for bands trying to be successful in the music industry.
We’re thinking about a lot of things. We’re trying a couple of songs with radio programmers right now to decide if were going to go to radio with the next single, and if we do, then there will be another music video and we’ll go to radio in the fall with the third single. We actually also are writing for the third record in our downtime, because you never know. We might decide to do the new record in the fall and get it out right away, or we might tour this record for another year. We’ll see what the demand is. I know there’s also been talk of, because we’ve been doing these acoustic tour shows, maybe doing the other three or four acoustic songs Sunflower Dead style, like a little EP for fans to download. We’ll see if that happens.
I know you guys have done covers before that were fun, but I don’t know if that’s something else you would do in the future or not. I think the first thing never heard from you guys was the Police cover. We’re definitely not a band that does a lot of covers because we’re just lazy in the sense of learning other people’s songs, but we’ll do a cover thing on a whim, like we’ll just work it and reload it to make it fit us. I don’t knowing we’ll do any covers. Maybe. You never know. Like I said, I do think the album still has legs under it, so we’re just, like everything we do, we’re just going to see how it goes and make decisions when we get all the facts. That’s it. We’re just starting to tour the record now. We did press and media without touring for a year purposefully, and radio to just build the awareness. Now we are finally touring the record so it’s all coming together.
That was definitely an interesting choice. Do you feel like it’s tougher than it used to be to break a band? This is not your first rodeo with a band and this environment is brutal for rock music.
All I can say is that the music industry unfortunately is the Wild West right now. You have to make up your own rules. I would say that Sunflower Dead takes advantage of that. We make up our own rules and we see the current climate, and we use it to our advantage. I could see how the current climate would be discouraging to most people because at the end of the day whether you’re on a label or completely independent, it all comes down to not only does the talent and skill and desire you have, but you need to have financial backing. It costs money to make money in any business, and in the music business, it probably costs $2 million to make $1 million. Do you know what I’m saying? Its a difficult time, and for us we are taking advantage of it and it’s working. I think that I was personally disappointed that the first single didn’t go higher on the charts than it did in radio, even though it did well, and I believe that’s because it’s the first time we’ve gone to radio. We are a new band in their eyes, but It’s Time To Get Weird single hit the top 40, which was good. We’re just like everyone else. We’re working and cresting awareness, ans at the end of the day, a bands job is to create awareness of their sound and their product so people will come around to it. You have to beat people over the head with it over and over again until they finally go “Oh, I get it.” That’s just how it goes.
I heard a really great thing on a podcast recently: for a new band to make it, you have to reinvigorate your fan base every couple of years with new blood, and really stay consistent for the first five years of your career. If you can do that over a couple of releases and bring awareness, then you get that sustainability factor kicks in when you get that recognition.
It’s a constant building process, and then when you reach a certain plateau, then you think “Okay, I’ve gotten somewhere.” Then you realize “Oh my god. There’s another huge amount this time.” then when you acquire that one, then you’re like “Oh my god. There’s another huge mountain.” It just keeps going and going and going. It’s why you have to keep in your mind, I would tell myself to enjoy the small victories, enjoy the process. You never know how long we’re going to be here in life or as a band, so just keep enjoying it and working to get better and spread that awareness. It’s working for us at a nice steady pace, and I believe that the groundwork that were laying, if we put out the right song, so the right things, when it does really connect, it’s going to connect big. That’s definitely the hope.
Catch Sunflower Dead on tour this fall with Hellyeah and Escape The Fate.
Recent years have seen UK progressive art rockers The Pineapple Thief hit a sweet spot of a niche between explorative and catchy songwriting. With the likes of All The Wars and Magnolia leaning either side respectively, 2016’s Your Wilderness straddled both thresholds and resulted in their most successful album and, arguably at that point, their creative peak. Poised for their biggest European tour, both in terms of dates and venue capacities, their latest album, Dissolution (all Kscope), once again continues this trend.
