The Blue Prison’s self-titled album will be out on September 17, 2021. Photo: google
The Blue Prison will release their anticipated self-titled debut full-length album on September 17, 2021 on Metal Assault Records. Comprising four brand new tracks and newly mastered versions of two singles and one song each from the four EPs previously released by the band; The Blue Prison will be available to purchase on digipack CD and on all digital music platforms. Pre-Order The Blue Prison now via Bandcamp, full length album slated for official release September 17 on Metal Assault Records. (The Blue Prison, 2021)
In celebration of their forthcoming album, the instrumental progressive metal duo Keigo Yoshida (guitar) and Jaime Munoz (drums) have filmed their first ever music video and recently unveiled their new single “Kaleidoscope.”
Through four EPs and one single released over the past six years, The Blue Prison has presented a stellar blend of sweeping progressive metal patterns, heavy dissonant guitar riffs, groovy rhythms, as well as shades of jazz fusion and ambient music. Their debut album explores all of these elements and more. The Blue Prison is a standout album, a multifaceted collection of melodic prog that is heavy as hell and teeming with technical prowess and compelling musicianship.
The Blue Prison track listing:
Beacon (1:22)
Alchemist (4:57)
Shadows (5:27)
Artemis (3:34)
Kaleidoscope (4:28)
River (1:30)
Tyrant (4:16)
Vengeance v2.0 (5:35)
Los Angeles (3:23)
Rosetta (3:50) Total Runtime: 38:22
The Blue Prison is: Keigo Yoshida (guitar) Jaime Munoz (drums)
The Blue Prison is Keigo Yoshida and Jaime Munoz. Courtesy photo, used with permission.
Jesus, Haggard & Jones. Courtesy photo, used with permission.
With over 22 million combined streams on Spotify and over 17 million views on YouTube with past releases, “Life of A Workin’ Man,” “The Way That I Am,” and “This Place Called USA,” Texas-born and bred country artist Creed Fisher has released a new single and lyric video “Jesus, Haggard & Jones,” off his forthcoming new album, due out later this year. The track is available today on all streaming services here and the lyric video is available here. (Creed Fisher, 2021)
“Jesus, Haggard & Jones” sets the tone for what fans can expect from Fisher’s upcoming original full-length project. A creative collaboration written by Fisher and his good friend Mark Jones, listeners can feel the truth and experience in Fisher’s voice over the steady strum of a guitar. This track stays true to Fisher, himself, and his past releases. It is an authentic, traditional acoustic country mixed with storytelling life experience.
With lyrics, “Hanging out on a barstool I learned about drinking… Hanging out with the police I learned I’m not Jesse James…Hanging out with Mark Jones I learned he still can’t get laid…Some things in This Town ain’t ever gonna change…It turns out in this life…That in the long run…The only thing you can count on…Jesus Haggard and Jones..” – Fisher uses his voice with rugged ease in the track to explain his own take on life. He elaborates on his realization that the only things people can count on amidst all of life’s lessons are the three legends – Jesus, Merle Haggard, and good Ol’ George Jones.
Authentically Creed Fisher, this single and lyric video leave fans craving more. More album details will be released in the coming weeks. Until then, fans can keep up with Fisher on his current tour and enjoy his most recent album release, How Country Music Sounded Before It All Went to Shit, Vol. 1, which is experiencing success at Texas radio.
With his last three albums debuting in the Top 5 on iTunes, Fisher hopes his new album Whiskey and the Dog will continue to help him defy the odds. Like a steely-eyed gunslinger from a Sergio Leone western, he is a man of few words and lets his music tell his story. Fisher has never been one to sell his soul to trends. Keeping it real means writing songs that real people can relate to; the good, bad, and even the ugly. His previous singles, “Rock & Roll Man,” “Be the Hope,” “I’m Growing Older, But I’m Not Growing Up,” and “A Few Good Ol’ Cowboys” all hit Top 10, Top 25, or Top 30 on the Texas Charts. He was also named the BigStar97 Outlaw Country artist of the Year in 2018.
Fisher has upped the ante, joining forces with record label Dirt Rock Empire for the release.
Creed Fisher. Photo: Sabrina Schmidt, used with permission.
Wood & Wire’s Tony Kamel announces solo release Back Down Home, due out September 24. Photo: google
Until Tony Kamel joined Wood & Wire in 2012, he had never played professionally. He had barely played for anyone—not even family—until many years after he pulled his mother’s old classical guitar out of their attic when he was 12. Being a musical late bloomer still got Kamel to the Grammys (for Wood & Wire’s North of Despair). But Back DownHome started gestating even before that; producer Bruce Robison had been encouraging Kamel to record a solo album for at least four years. And now—just after the arrival of his first child—it is here. (Tony Kamel, 2021)
Back Down Home is the first full solo-artist album from renowned singer-songwriter and producer Bruce Robison’s The Next Waltz label. In just a few days of no-fuss tracking at the Bunker, Robison’s all-analog studio in Lockhart, Texas, Kamel and several talented contributors crafted an album that fully conveys the down-home vibe its title suggests, as well as the laid-back nature of life on Texas’ Gulf Coast, especially Galveston. The operative word in the album’s title, “home,” usually takes on a twofold meaning: the place where people live and the place where people come from, but for Kamel, it also represents the place where his happiest memories were made. He’s got a mental scrapbook filled with special moments he experienced on the shores and waters of the port city once known as “the Ellis Island of the West.”
“It’s been a long hard week, a long hard month, it’s been a long hard year. Hard times are nothing new around here,” sings Houston-born songwriter and front man for the Grammy-nominated string band Wood & Wire, Tony Kamel, on his new tune “Amen.” With a refrain that celebrates making it to the other side of life’s trials and tribulations, “Amen” feels like it could not have come at a more perfect time in the life of musicians or music fans or humanity as a whole; the third verse an impossibly positive song of hope for the pandemic to come to an end. Piano, lap steel, horns, and—in the most Texan twist ever—percussion played on a Yeti cup carry Kamel’s rollicking, good-time melody from words on the page right to every dancefloor, backyard barbeque, road trip, and festival stage imaginable. “Amen” is just one of ten tracks from Kamel’s upcoming solo album, Back Down Home—set to be released September 24th via album-producer Bruce Robison’s The Next Waltz label. The Austin Chronicle premiered a studio-shot music video for “Amen,” praising how it “sets the album’s tone,” adding, “The jaunty number rollicks with an easy rhythm and laid-back wisdom.” Fans can watch the video now at this link and pre-order or pre-save Back Down Home before release day right here.
In conjunction with the release of Back Down Home, Kamel is creating an accompanying podcast that he calls his “thank you to the people and places that inspired the record.” Featuring interviews with Back Down Home’s cast and crew about making the album, as well as other artists and characters who dive into some of the deeper facets of the album’s subject matter—the Gulf Coast, going back to day jobs, overcoming sudden changes, and more.
Back DownHome Track list: Amen Slow on The Gulf Johnny Law Who Am I Kidding? Let It Slide Heat The Surfer This River Reuben’s Train Change
New album Ode releases September 10 on Metal Assault Records. Photo: google
While pandemic restrictions impacted every aspect of heavy music, Los Angeles, CA post-metal vendors refused to be shaken by the uncertainty of the return of live stage shows and tapped deeper into their well of talent to create their next and perhaps most impressive offering yet. Ode, the forthcoming seven song crusher from Dawn Fades is slated for release September 10, 2021 on Metal Assault Records. The album’s lead single ‘Taste’ is streaming exclusively on Toilet Ov Hell. Ode is now available for pre-order on CD, limited-edition multi-colored LP, and digital download. (Dawn Fades, 2021)
Exclusive merch bundles including CD + shirt as well as LP + shirt bundles are also available during the pre-order campaign, wherein the shirt design is based on the album cover art. All digital and merch pre-orders come with a free instant download of ‘Taste.’ Pre-order your copy of Ode in the format of your choice online.
On the new video for album track ‘Taste’ released in partnership with Toilet Ov Hell, Dawn Fades front man and songwriter Sam Sherwood states “For this video the constraints of the pandemic pushed us to try something different. We had for some time been fans of Chariot Of Black Moth’s work so choosing him was a no brainer. I recorded some footage at home and he turned it into something that perfectly captures the tone of the song. Enjoy!”
In regard to the album as a whole, Sherwood describes Ode as “a picture of feelings about the trappings of the world we find ourselves in. I believe we are doing a thing that has its own life to it. There is darkness and screaming inner-torment and there are ear-worm hooks.”
Mixed by heavy music mainstay Josh Newell (Intronaut, Anthrax, Linkin Park) Ode retains the core elements of the band’s highly successful self-titled debut yet reveals even greater musical evolution as Dawn Fades seamlessly captures the visceral magnetism of their live show experience on wax. More resolute in their vision and execution, Ode further proves Dawn Fades is simply unstoppable in their pursuit of post metal mastery, quickly rising among the ranks of the genre’s most elite.
Ode track listing: 1. Dearth (8:17) 2. Taste (5:11) 3. Ode: Part 1 (1:51) 4. Ode: Part 2 (5:56) 5. Front (6:57) 6. Chains (8:36) 7. Turning (3:23) Total Runtime: 40:11
In a world where aggressive music often overheats and palatable music often feels packaged, Dawn Fades presents a satisfying alternative rife with emotional moments and unpredictable appeal, backed by sheer brute force. Formed in August 2016 under the fluorescent bulbs of gritty L.A. rehearsal rooms, the band quickly amassed a collection of heavy, thoughtful material based on songs conceived by main songwriter Sam Sherwood (vocals) and realized with the input and experience of Adam El-Gerbi (guitar), Markus Erren Pardiñas (bass), Scott Quist (drums), and Nate Hertweck (guitar). Covering grounds from gorgeous to punishing, the Southern California based five-piece finds poignant and personal places to explore in between these extremes. What has emerged prompts comparisons to Deftones, Isis, Failure, and something just out of reach, familiar yet fresh, crushing yet calculated.
‘Fool Me’ is the third single from the Sydney-based band’s forthcoming album. Photo: google
Sons Of The East, the indie-folk band from the Northern Beaches of Sydney, Australia, are pleased to announce the release of their newest single “Fool Me” and its companion video. Premiering exclusively via Atwood Magazine who celebrated the song as “an instant classic,” adding that it is a “folksy anthem for reveling in the moment: a soundtrack for feeling good and celebrating connect, arriving just as our world starts to open up.” Listen to and watch the video for “Fool Me” now at this link. (Sons Of The East, 2021)
When asked about the track, the band told Atwood Magazine that they are “big fans of the Faces and Stones, and knew that if we wanted that vibe we needed to keep it as loose and fun as possible. It started with just banjo and guitar, and then piano became the signature voice of the track. We loved the honkytonk vibe, the idea that you could be sitting around at 1a.m. in a bar singing along to the piano and at any moment the whole thing could unravel. When it came time to shoot the film clip, the same rules applied.”
Sons Of The East is made up of Australian bandmates Dan Wallage, Nic Johnston, and Jack Rollins who have already seen their music achieve 150 million streams and over 30 million YouTube views as their popularity continues to soar worldwide. The band’s motley acoustic electric sound has become a unique and charismatic trademark: soulful, joyous, and irresistible.
“Fool Me” is the third single from the band’s forthcoming album set to release later this year. Previously released singles include “You Might Think” and “On My Way,” both of which are available everywhere now. They will hit the road in 2022 for an Australian capital city tour, followed by a headlining tour through Europe and North America.
Jackson Melnick makes bluegrass-tinged music for the brain on debut LP Abilene. Courtesy photo, used with permission.
Colorado songwriter Jackson Melnick has long been aware of the struggles of modern-day farmers in the but seeing the cold hard facts directly inspired his new song “Trouble.” “I was reading about the plight of suicides among farmers in America,” says Melnick. “Farmers have a suicide rate that more than three times that of the general population.” Melnick has seen the isolation many farmers struggle with, as well as seeing society at large becoming less tolerant of the demands of farmers and less aware of where their food comes from. In a beautifully heartbreaking, rollicking melody, he wastes no time getting to the point. “10,000 lives gone like the weather / When are we gonna start treating our farmers better?,” sings Melnick in “Trouble.” Bluegrass Today shared a music video for the song, calling it “an interesting mix of folk and bluegrass, with Dylan-esque songs.” In Melnick’s words, “The music video for the song says it all: digging a hole that’ll be your grave but can’t stop digging for the love of it.” “Trouble” is the first single from Melnick’s debut full-length album Abilene, due out September 24. Fans can watch the video for “Trouble” here and pre-order or pre-save Abilene ahead of its release at this link. (Jackson Melnick, 2021)
Produced by esteemed musician Christopher Henry (Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band), the upcoming Abilene positions Melnick as an important new voice in folk music, and also features accomplished bluegrass musicians such as Jason Carter, Matt Combs, Alex Leach, Tuck Tucker, and Cory Walker. Although the arrangements draw on the traditional sound of Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley, among others, Abilene is at heart a songwriter’s record. Across these 10 tracks, Melnick combines his reverence for bluegrass with a lyrical point of view that is both mystical and topical.
After a rousing opener of “John the Revelator,” Melnick moves to the aforementioned “Trouble,” which touches on suicides within the farming communities of the Owens Valley in California. It is an epidemic he learned about while attending nearby Deep Springs College during a period of time when he began to hone his songwriting craft. Later, “South of My Soul” offers a sincere testimony about wishing the best for the other person when a relationship dissolves. Written in the moment, it is a cinematic yet poetic song that explores what it means to forgive and to heal. Truly, these emotional perspectives align well with Melnick’s career as a psychotherapist. “Being a therapist requires a lot of presence and raising consciousness, and I think that’s the kind of songwriter I’m interested in being, too,” he says. “I want to write songs that elevate the space to a higher mind of seeing things. I find that the themes in my music tend to be connected to that experience.”
Growing up in Crested Butte, Colorado, Melnick began meditating when he was 8 years old. Within a few years, he learned to play guitar and started busking—first singing John Denver and Steve Earle songs, then moving toward Dylan classics. Through most of his teenage years he hosted a weekly radio show on a local community station, too. But the most transformative moment may have been when he was 17 years old and saw a video of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings on stage. “I was watching them, and I felt like I knew exactly what they were doing, and how they did it. It was a transmission, like, ‘I know how to do that,’” Melnick recalls. “It hit me like a stack of bricks. Then I went to my guitar and I wrote three songs. They just sort of poured out and that was the beginning for me.”
Yet, music is just one component of Melnick’s overall goal. “I’m focused on big-project thinking,” he says, “I don’t want to just be a musician. I want to be working toward the healing of our planet.”
Abilene Track list: John The Revelator Trouble I See You Raghse Zarrat Spirit Mother Abilene San Diego Pt. 2 San Diego South Of My South The Rhythm Has No End
Matthew Fowler’s stunning label debut The Grief We Gave Our Mother due out September 10, 2021. Photo: google
Some people collect stamps or baseball cards or instruments, but born-and-raised Florida musician Matthew Fowler is well on his way to perfecting the art of collecting memories, displaying them not on a shelf but in musical verse and melody for the world to hear. “I moved to Denver. I quit my job. My grandfather died. I fell in and out of love. I toured all over the place. I spent a month living in Mauritius, the island country off Madagascar where my mom grew up,” says Fowler about the ingredients of his upcoming album The Grief We Gave Our Mother—out September 10 via Signature Sounds Recordings. (Matthew Fowler, 2021)
With Fowler, however, the easy-to-recall memories usually represent something more profound under the surface. For example, “I’m Still Trying,” at its root, is an admission of guilt and a shot at reconciliation with a family grown apart. “I lived with my parents for a long time in-between touring and traveling. Returning back to my childhood home after experiencing so much on tour made me take the time to remember lots of things about my past with a new perspective.” Fowler was named Holler’s New Artist of the Week and spoke with them about his music and more. Listen to “I’m Still Trying” at this link and pre-order or pre-save The Grief We Gave Our Mother ahead of its September 10 release right here.
Written over the course of the past several years, The Grief We Gave Our Mother is indeed a profoundly personal work of self-discovery and introspection, but more than that, it is an ode to growing up and chasing dreams. The result is a record that is at once bold and timid, hopeful and anxious, world-weary and naïve, an honest, revelatory collection all about putting one foot in front of the other and forging a life of purpose, passion, and meaning. “This record is the sound of me finding myself and my place in the world,” Fowler reflects. “It’s about real moments and real stories and real people.”
The Grief We Gave Our Mother Track list: Marianne Been A Lover Reprise Blankets I Fall Away Leaving Home, Looking Back Everything That I Could I’m Still Trying Rest Going Nowhere Cassie Rooftops Beginners
Erik Shicotte keeps it on the rails with his new EP Miss’ry Pacific. Courtesy photo, used with permission.
With his booming voice bobbing and weaving around fiddle and steel punches and a rollicking train beat, Wisconsin-based singer, songwriter, and ironworker Erik Shicotte does not waste time getting his point across in the first few seconds of Miss’ry Pacific, his brand new EP recently released via Black Country Rock Media. In a six song span, listeners will be greeted with waltzes, train songs, honky tonkers, and country ramblers, on which Shicotte sings with humor and pathos about trains, trucks, and hard-working heroes who hang out around highways, rails, and honky-tonks. Well studied in the art of outlaw-ism, there are echoes of the greats in Shicotte’s songs—Waylon, Willie, Cash, Haggard, and the wit of the late great John Prine, just to name a few—but underneath it all lies a hard-working authenticity that puts him, along with contemporaries like Colter Wall, into a level of legitimacy unobtainable by some of today’s drugstore cowboy songwriters. (Erik Shicotte, 2021)
An ironworker himself, Shicotte travels around the country building fire training towers. He carries his guitar with him everywhere, slinging iron by day and spending nights holed up in hotel rooms with a pen in hand and a song in mind. “I take a lot of pride in keeping genuine to my own damn humor and existence,” he says. “I myself can’t write anything I don’t know, see, feel or believe in. I draw from my experiences and imagination within interpretation.”
For a sneak peek of Miss’ry Pacific, check out this video of Shicotte’s stripped down, pre-pandemic version of the EP’s title track.
Miss’ry Pacific Track list: Miss’ry Pacific Kansas City Niners Flint Silver Die Like A Man
The Faux Pays are set to release debut self-titled album on August 27, 2021. Photo: google
After nearly a decade of making music as The Faux Paws, the eclectic bi-coastal trio are making it official with the release of their debut album The Faux Paws, releasing via Great Bear Records (distribution by Free Dirt Service Co.) The trio’s contagious groove and feel-good melting pot folk music has been honed over ten years of playing together, and is the sound of three close friends—two of which happen to be brothers—who feel a musical kinship that transcends any stylistic limitations. Are there raging fiddle tunes? Saxophone solos? Unrequited love songs? Yes to all of the above, and so much more. One would be hard pressed to find a group of musicians with such interesting backgrounds as The Faux Paws. Brothers Andrew and Noah VanNorstrand grew up playing contra dance music with their musician mother in the band Great Bear and Chris Miller grew up in Florida where he was enamored with bluegrass and studied jazz before going on to play with Grammy nominated Cajun-country band The Revelers. The ultimate result of their alchemy is a free-wheeling sense of musical exploration on The Faux Paws, out August 27, 2021. Fans can preorder the album here. (The Faux Paws, 2021)
Since meeting in 2012, the trio have toured across North America several times, sometimes under the name The Faux Paws, sometimes as part of other larger ensembles. But due to their commitments to other bands and musical projects, the timing was never right to focus on making The Faux Paws a priority until now. Instead, they took their time learning about different styles of music from one another, and finding where their interests and skills could create unexpected and exciting new sounds. “I love super glossy pop music, and Chris is always pushing more of a jazz influence,” says Noah. “But we all have a strong background in dance music, so almost everything we do has rhythm and groove, and is based around hook and feel.” The Faux Paws flows effortlessly between genres and moods. An upbeat lyrical song like “She’s Not Looking For You” is followed by a technical instrumental, “Guacmaster.” At times, both sides of the coin present; the driving bluegrass-folk “Montauk” is a fine example of that.
It may have taken The Faux Paws ten years to make their debut album, but those years have clearly not gone to waste. Now, with an experimental but cohesive vision, the trio brings together seemingly unrelated musical elements into one joyful and distinctive collection, deeply rooted in the raw humanity of folk dance and music traditions.
Mountain Song is the second single from upcoming album The Roses, due out July 23, 2021. Courtesy photo, used with permission.
Ava Earl, an 18 year old songwriter and outdoor enthusiast hailing from Girdwood, Alaska, has released the second single “Mountain Song” from her forthcoming album titled The Roses which will be available on July 23, 2021. “Mountain Song” is, in Earl’s own words, “about a real life experience that I had when I was a bit too confident in my mountain climbing skills. I usually pride myself in my spontaneity, but this experience reminds me that caution is a necessary consideration. This song is also about understanding my lack of control in the universe.” Earl is known in Alaskan music circles and folk worlds nationally for her keen sense of self, intricate fingerpicking, and graceful melodies—“Mountain Song” being the perfect example of all three. (Ava Earl, 2021)
The Roses was recorded in Nashville and produced by JT Nero, one half of the Americana-outfit, Birds of Chicago and features hauntingly beautiful background vocals from Allison Russell and Awna Teixeira.
Amplify Music Magazine pointed out in a recent interview that “Earl has always been drawn to powerful lyrical storytellers, which has weaved into her own lyrical consciousness. Endlessly inspired by and propelled by community found through music, Ava has always put herself in spaces to find and nurture that inter-musical connection and camaraderie.”
Previous to this single drop and album announce, Earl has written and co-produced three full-length albums which includes Am I Me Yet?, her previous album, was released in July 2018. Am I Me Yet? is a 15 song collection recorded at The Hallowed Halls studio in Portland, Oregon, and features Earl on guitar and vocals, Andy Mullen on guitar and bass, and Anna Tivel on violin. The album was engineered by Hawkins Wright, who is also the album’s co-producer.
An engaging performer, Earl thrives in a live concert setting, drawing audiences in with her music and stories. Highlight performances over the years include opening dates for Maggie Rogers, Rhett Miller, and Tim Easton.
The Roses Track list: Springtime Mountain Song The Roses New Light On A Page Up Here in the Sky Chaos Do You Know Me By My Name? Wintertime Butterflies
SA Examiner 