Yam Haus - Stargazer (2018)

OFFICIAL: http://www.yamhaus.com/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/yamhaus

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/YAMHAUSBand

Written by Shannon Cowden, posted by blog admin

Yam Haus’ Stargazer begins with its powerful title track and it serves notice that the young Minneapolis based outfit means business. The pulsing synthesizer opening “Stargazer” soon transitions into sharply crafted verses driven by jagged bright guitar and straight ahead percussion. Lead singer Lars Pruitt makes the most from the band’s flair with a good chorus and helps “Stargazer” reach stratospheric heights. “West Coast” doesn’t have quite the same panache with a more diffuse chorus, but the vocal melody keeps things beguiling for listeners and the song has a trademark unity that makes it a deeply enjoyable listening experience, but the third song in Stargazer’s opening trio “Kingdom” brings audiences another indelible chorus and some particularly Eighties touches thanks to the song’s synthesizer adornments.

It’s impossible to get away from how well recorded and produced Yam Haus’ debut is. Stargazer highlights a band with a diverse sound, but the production expertly balances and separates the instruments in each respective song and renders the band’s musical vision in high gloss musical Technicolor. The album’s fourth song is well in keeping with the pop inclinations of the opening trio – “Get Somewhere” has some especially tasty verses, but the real pay off comes with the song’s chorus and it undeniably connects with listeners. Yam Haus introduces some piano into “Too Many People” and the gospel influences rife throughout the tune never strike a false note and Pruitt responds with a lot of soulfulness. The accompanying handclaps are another humanizing element of the song moving it away from the electronic flourishes running through the earlier songs and this more stripped down, traditional approach rings true.

“Right Now, Forever” flips the script for anyone listening to every track up to this point. Yam Haus completely backs away from the template of the previous five songs in favor of a delicately constructed acoustic performance and Pruitt adjusts his voice accordingly. It strikes a sharp contrast with its follow up, “You Need Love (Stargazer Reprise)”, but this reprise veers away from aping the title track and, instead, develops similar themes in a different musical fashion. “Bad News” returns them to the familiar ground of pop songwriting craftsmanship and they deliver again, but the vocal melody is especially memorable and Pruitt capitalizes on its potential.

They orchestrate an entertaining, compelling build for the track “Carry Me Home” and Pruitt delivers a singing performance exploring the full range of his voice’s dynamic possibilities. His seamless shifting through varying levels of his register undoubtedly benefits from the presence of recording technology, but there’s no indication in the recording that Pruitt would struggle reproducing this in a live setting.

The band’s two guitar punch comes to the forefront with the album’s one indisputable rocker “We Are the Storm”, but they quickly prove they don’t succumb to six string self indulgence even when they let that side of their musical character rise to the surface. Instead, it has a sinewy and confident texture that draws you in from the first. Yam Haus improbably ends Stargazer with the near-folky strands of “Something Better” and the minimal accompaniment playing alongside Pruitt’s voice and the band’s acoustic guitar fleshes out the song just enough to help it sink deeper into your consciousness. It’s a gentle, profoundly evocative closer for Stargazer, one of the most satisfying releases in recent memory, not just 2018.

Astronomique - Sharp Divide (2018)

OFFICIAL: http://www.astronomiquemusic.com

FACEBOOK:  https://www.facebook.com/astronomiqueband/

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/Astronomiques

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/astronomiques/

BANDCAMP: https://astronomique.bandcamp.com

Written by Larry Robertson, posted by blog admin

Astronomique’s journey to musical prominence takes another major leap into the future with the release of their first full length collection Sharp Divide. The ten song outing builds on the band’s previous EP efforts and illustrates the full breadth of their creative vision while still pointing the way towards a boundless future. Led by lead vocalist Logan Andra Fongemie and guitarist Sean Hogan, the four piece also benefits enormously from the contributions of drummer Mitch Billings and bass player Preston Saari. Their heft and swing as a rhythm section is produced for maximum effect and provides a muscular center for each performance without threatening to dominate the mix. This Minneapolis based band fuses a number of styles together on Sharp Divide and the ultimate effect of the release widens the gulf between their work and similarly themed bands working on the indie scene or elsewhere.

“Forefathers” begins Sharp Divide with an excellent example of the steady pulse provided by Saari and Billings. It has a speaker rattling touch without ever being too heavy handed and the production virtues round it into a warm, fat heartbeat for this song and others to come. Fongemie’s synthesizer playing blends well with Hogan’s guitar and they often work in concert akin to the manner we hear between progressive guitarists and their keyboard playing band mates. There’s an appealing Euro pop vibe to the track “Side of Your Mind” with a strong danceable beat and jangling Hogan guitar flashing throughout. Fongemie’s vocal is surrounded with considerable echo and seems slightly submerged in the mix, but the overall quality of her performance remains unaffected. It’s one of the album’s most evocative numbers and never overplays its ambitions.

“Losing Our Control” is built around its electronica sheen and has a steady stride once the full band kicks in. The consistent push of this song makes it one of the album’s more meaningful numbers while still relying on the same atmospheric calling cards we’ve heard with Sharp Divide’s first two songs. The album’s title song will impress many as the finest song on the release thanks to its fully conceived slant, both lyrically and musically, but Mitch Billings’ striding drums strike just the right pacing for the performance. Fongemie’s vocal is among her finest outings on the album and she wisely reserves an effort of this quality for the album’s title cut.

A recurrent swell of Fongemie’s synthesizers opens “Unspoken” and, when the song begins in full, Billings sets a definite tone with the brief gallop in his drumming. It’s impressive how the band maintains such a steady, nuanced pace throughout the track and Hogan’s lattice like guitar work hits an individual peak with his playing here. “Bleed Me” is a much darker tune, both lyrically and sonically, without ever deviating from Astronomique’s core sound and the album’s finale “Heading Nowhere” powerfully encapsulates the album’s primary themes in a parting tune every bit as compelling as its best predecessors. Sharp Divide is one of the year’s more creative musical efforts and opens the door to a boundless future for this Minneapolis band.

Sky Orchid - Oculus (2017)

OFFICIAL: https://skyorchid.net/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/skyorchidofficial/

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/skyorchidband

Written by Mike Yoder, posted by blog admin

The Traknyak brothers from Kansas have long been carving a soon to be musical legacy across their local area.  With tour and recording dates taking them throughout Kansas, Texas and Tennessee, they are making their radius known more and more every single day.  They’ve also received airplay on at least 50 different Internet stations at this point as well.  Oculus is their first full-length outing and it deserves a careful, deliberate ear for its many musical intricacies.  There’s no specific genre and the duo of Gabriel and Daniel traverse several within each of the songs on this 10-track offering. 

The soothing waves of the aptly titled “The River” gets things going with a downbeat piano melody giving way to electronica drum programming and sky shot vocals that really ascend to a big pay-off of hard guitar meat and densely layered sound collage. What starts as a leisurely stroll ends with volume and a wall of sound type production befitting a late great psychedelic rock band.  This record is full of these nuances with “Sneakers” following much of the same blueprint though it replaces the piano focal point with guitar and launches into a heavy rocker of the highest order long before the endnote.  “In the Fire (Part 1)” is a subtle dirge that reckons of the album opener with the follow-up of “Wildfire” changing the trajectory dramatically in a wake of acoustic guitars, superb vocal melodies and lurching beats that open up into wider electric expanses towards the finish line. 

The frenetic “I’ll Stop the World (Part 2)” mingles faster, riff-driven bursts with slower downshifts that showcase a split personality between heavier and lighter vibes that still keep mindful of excellent musical melodies and big vocal hooks.  Tempos descend on the crumbling “Lex” and the tune’s scintillating guitar smolders, powerhouse drum thumping and fire-forged vocal mantras.  This strange otherworldly flavor is offset by the bluesy rollick of “Breathe Easy” and the almost ska-guitar boogie of “Take It All.”  These tracks are certainly the odd man out on the record stylistically, but somehow they fit within the overall framework.  Sky Orchid returns to darkly shaded surrealism on “Yesterday” and “Fortify,” making for a very strong send-off for the record at large.  There are no duds to be found here and all of the songs obviously had a long gestation period for all of the individual parts to develop and solidify. 

Oculus couldn’t be a stronger flagship release from the brothers Traknyak.  They’ve got strong musical chops, sharp songwriting skills, fantastic ears for production and all-around full bodied sense of how their sound should be portrayed to the masses.  With the proper label push and backing that understands their music, there is no reason that Sky Orchid couldn’t become a household name.  The duo has gotten a sizable following from their touring and recording out in the Midwest and it’s only a matter of time before they start branching out and taking over other parts of the United States.  Oculus is a fantastic debut that should be heard by everyone.         

Joshua Ketchmark - Under Plastic Stars (2017)

OFFICIAL: http://www.joshuaketchmark.com/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/josh.ketchmark

Written by Daniel Boyer, posted by blog admin

“We Were Everything” begins Joshua Ketchmark’s Under Plastic Stars on a decidedly elegiac note, but this isn’t a dreary collection of songs. Ketchmark’s first full fledged solo effort, self-produced and written by Ketchmark, finds this longtime musical cohort of some of the music world’s biggest acts stepping out on his own with considerable talent and finesse. The primarily acoustic slant to this album is adorned with other touches like keyboards and even some occasional swaths of steel guitar, but you can’t comfortably consign it to a particular genre. “We Were Everything” has strong melodic virtues that continues with the second song “Every Mystery”, but the arrangement is a little more inventive and less straightforward than we hear from the first song. It doesn’t veer too far, however, from the tendencies established with “We Were Everything”.

The steel guitar present in “Let It Rain” is so thoroughly integrated with the rest of the arrangement that it never calls ostentatious attention to itself and, instead, proves to be just another color in Ketchmark’s toolbox. It’s easy to single this tune out as one of the undisputed high points on Under Plastic Stars and the emphatic nature of Ketchmark’s singing signals he views the song in a similar manner. “Lucky at Leavin’” sounds like it might be some classic country cut, based on title alone, but it’s actually a lush and carefully wrought acoustic number, folk for the most part, that benefits from a swell of keyboard color strengthening its sound. Ketchmark’s singing hits another high water mark with this tune that will, undoubtedly, linger in listener’s memories long after the song ends. “Hereafter” is particularly effective thanks to Brad Rice’s sinewy electric guitar lines crackling throughout the performance and another impassioned vocal never risking overwrought theatrics.

“Get Out Alive” has a little more of a rough hewn gait than the earlier tunes and owes its roots to the blues much more than anything else so far. It’s an evocative piece lyrically and Ketchmark brings just enough gravel into his voice to make this character dissection all the more convincing. He hits another high point with the commercial potential of “Saturday Night”, but Ketchmark isn’t a performer pursuing the path of least resistance. Instead, he throws himself into this tune for all he’s worth and it reaches heights the earlier songs never explore. “In Harm’s Way” is a largely solo acoustic tune incorporating more sounds in the second half and has a pleasing melodic core that will draw many listeners into its web.

“Sweet Surrender” takes some of the same template we hear with the song “Saturday Night” but, instead of relying on guitars, brings piano in to great effect and Ketchmark’s voice responds in kind with a showstopper of a vocal. The near orchestral sweep of this song stands out from the rest and makes it one of Under Plastic Stars’ more memorable moments. The last track “The Great Unknown” adopts a busier tempo than we’ve heard with much of the album and, thus, brings the release to an energetic close. Joshua Ketchmark’s Under Plastic Stars is an obviously personal work, but the entry points for listeners are numerous and inviting.  

Black Bluebirds - Like Blood for Music (2017)

OFFICIAL: http://blackbluebirds.com/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/BlackBluebirds

Written by Wendy Owens, posted by blog admin

This is an album that, despite its often distorted texture and unusual vocals, has an infectious quality. Like Blood for Music from the Minneapolis power trio Black Bluebirds is a condensed, yet often epic and expansive, ten song collection packing punch on even the softest numbers. Daniel Fiskum’s vocals dominant the recording, but he’s often accompanied by second vocalist Jessica Rasche to spectacular effect. There’s some uptempo tracks on Like Blood for Music, but many of the songs on the album invoke a deliberate and cinematic air that never strains to make an impact on listeners. Guitarist Simon Husbands and drummer Chad Helmonds form the other two corners of this power trio, but you can’t readily label the band as some derivative outfit hanging onto clichés often going along with that configuration. Instead, Black Bluebirds makes its own path while still relying on great fundamentals.

“Love Kills Slowly” relies a lot on Simon Husbands’ memorable lead guitar to make its most colorful marks and the combination of Fiskum and Rasche’s singing reach a peak of sorts with the very first number. Her voice isn’t used in quite the same way on the album’s second number “Strange Attractor”, but she has an effective presence nonetheless. The comparatively less cluttered arrangement has a sinewy power we don’t hearing in the first song, but nonetheless leaves it mark on listeners. “Life in White” shouldn’t pass people by as its one of the album’s more potentially underrated numbers, but Like Blood for Music takes a successful turn invoking acoustic sounds on an album where we wouldn’t necessarily expect that at this point.

“Battlehammer” is another of Like Blood for Music’s rockier numbers and unreels in such pyrotechnic fashion primarily thanks to Simon Husbands’ guitar pyrotechnics. He’s never a flashy player, however, and each of those moments across the span of Like Blood for Music makes great sense. One of the album’s undisputed high points comes with the song :”House of No More Dreams”. Despite the possibly overwrought implications behind the title, the song never descends into bathos and instead Fiskum’s lyrics give us a glimpse of some underrated poetic chops. The vocal for “Hole in the Day” gives a new spin to the album’s sound so far without ever venturing too far afield of Black Bluebirds’ musical DNA. “Don’t Fall In Love” continues striking the same fatalistic note that’s characterized much of the release from the start and definitely has added emotional firepower thanks to the contributions of second singer Jessica Rasche. The album’s genuine climax comes with the track “My Eyes Were Closed”, but it’s never self conscious and, instead, realizes the band’s cinematic ambitions in a way that solidifies their claim to present excellence while pointing a way towards the future. Black Bluebirds’ Like Blood for Music is definitely entertaining from the first, but gains even more from the added touch of personal statement fueling each of its ten songs.