SPINEFARM/CANDLELIGHT Records News: LOWLIVES, SHRAPNEL
LOWLIVES release new single and video "Loser" and announce debut album.
West coast based raucous rockers LOWLIVES have shared their new single and music video for 'Loser'.
A celebration of love between outcasts, the single comes alongside the announcement of their debut album, 'Freaking Out', due May 31st via their new label home Spinefarm.
"‘Loser is a love song about a self proclaimed ‘loser’ who has fallen in love with someone they also see as a misfit outcast like themselves." explains vocalist and guitarist Lee Downer. "Both as awkward and weird as each other just wishing they could be losers together. Musically it’s definitely the most pop song on the record and is an ode to 90’s alternative radio."
Watch the music video to 'Loser' here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKhmOgK-cgQ
Stream 'Loser' here: https://open.spotify.com/intl-de/album/6stziyO40ovFZGQN71pB67
Pre-save Freaking Out here: https://www.linkfire.com/
The full track listing for Freaking Out is as follows:
1. Freaking Out
2. Liar
3. Getting High on Being Low
4. Swan Dive
5. Loser
6. You Don’t care
7. Out of Step
8. Closer Than You Know
9. Damien
10. Vertigo
Watch the music video to previously released single 'Liar' here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN_PdsIyUKk
LOWLIVES isn’t so much about carefully stoking the embers as pouring on gasoline with merry impetuosity. With vocalist Lee Downer and drummer Luke Johnson joined by guitarist Jaxon Moore and bassist Steve Lucarelli, the nascent band was founded on a shared love of ‘90s alternative and grunge, and a shared desire to make music once more for little more than the love of doing so.
“During my time away from music, someone bought a pair of child’s ear defenders for my wife and I as a present when we announced we were pregnant,” Johnson recalls. “I’d put them away in the cupboard, thinking we’d never need them, that I wouldn’t be playing any shows again. But they became this thing that nagged at me, the feeling that my daughter would never know the original me, for whom music was everything. Over time, those feelings came flooding back, as did the hunger, and the innocence. A massive part of me had been missing, and I wanted to get back to doing something pure and for the sheer love of it. That’s what Lowlives is. Whatever happens, happens. Let’s just Thelma And Louise this off a cliff.”
Debut album Freaking Out, set for release in May 2024 via Spinefarm, arrives imbued with that same such spirit. The intervening years have, after all, been above all about nurturing exactly that, first through jam sessions at Luke’s home studio and latterly fledgling adventures on the road. A 2018 tour of the UK, hastily arranged following the cancellation of a high-profile support billing the band were mere hours from embarking upon, was formative in bonding the quartet on and off the stage. Performing to an audience of two before bedding down in a trashed squat will do that to even the most seasoned, tour-hardened souls. “It really did cement who we are and what we’re about,” Johnson says, laughing at the fond memories of the 13-date fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants trek.
Recorded at Chapel Studios with producer Adrian Bushby, the 10 tracks that arrive under Freaking Out’s banner are the scintillating end product of their self-funded two-week stay, where the four musicians would work all day with joyous abandon on fleshing out the sketches of songs with which they arrived, before retiring at night to unwind over cans of cider and the football.
“The experience of being forced into that situation of living and working together brought us even closer together, I feel,” nods Downer. “We were able to work collectively in a way we hadn’t previously, due to the geography of where we all live in the States.”
Downer points to his passion for Nirvana and Alice In Chains shining through on tracks such as ‘Vertigo’ and ‘Swan Dive’; Johnson likewise to his obsession with The Smashing Pumpkins on ‘You Don’t Care’. Fans of early-day Foo Fighters, Bush and Stone Temple Pilots will feel at home between Freaking Out’s sheets; admirers of Billie Joe Armstrong (‘Freaking Out’), Matt Skiba (‘Damien’) and Rivers Cuomo (‘Loser’), likewise. Freaking Out is an unashamed celebration of its influences, and the simple beauty of the coalescence of guitar, bass, drums and vocals. “We’re making music that excites us because it’s what we want to hear,” Johnson says, simply.
But make no mistake: there is depth here, too, deeply ingrained in lyrics that mine fears, anxieties, vulnerabilities, and the existential questions that keep us staring at the ceiling in the early hours. Freaking Out is, above all, the distillation of what LOWLIVES is truly about. It’s rock music to make you fall in love with rock music all over again. ‘I thought by now I’d have the answers / Or the power to save my soul,’ Downer sings on the impassioned ‘Closer Than You Know’. LOWLIVES might not hold that key, but it’s the spark that he and Johnson have been missing in their lives and looking for all along. Let it in, and you might find it’s the same for you, too.
LOWLIVES are:
Lee Downer - Vocals/Guitar
Jaxon Moore - Guitar
Steve Lucarelli - Bass
Luke Johnson - Drums
LOWLIVES online:
https://www.wearelowlives.com
SHRAPNEL announce new album and release single/video.
UK heavyweights Shrapnel have announced their forthcoming album In Gravity will be released via Candlelight Records on 31st May. To celebrate, the band have released a new single and video, 'Amber Screams'. It's a powerful track which looks at the harrowing issue of being stuck in a cycle of substance abuse.
Watch the video for ‘Amber Screams’ here: https://youtu.be/bd68qoOx9kQ
Pre-order In Gravity here: https://shrapnel.lnk.to/InGravityAlbum
The band comment on the new single: "'Amber Screams' delves into the harmful cycle of substance abuse and the search of greater highs becoming the escape from the plummeting normalcy of addiction.
"This is simply the most bludgeoning and heavy we've ever sounded. It's a pretty sombre and introspective song, drawing on our love of bands like Alice In Chains, Deftones, and Gojira, and turning this into something new. We really wanted to lean into our post-metal side and ended up writing what is possibly our favourite song on the new album. We really wanted to translate a feeling of despondency and a sense of teetering on the edge of the abyss."
New album In Gravity is the sound of rebirth and marks the launch of a new chapter for Shrapnel. Drawing on their ever-deepening well of experience and influence, In Gravity sees a band at the height of their song writing prowess. Whether dealing in extremity and complexity, Gojira-inspired bludgeoning heaviness, or a newly emerging sense of modern melodic maturity, Shrapnel are able to weave their sonic palette in new, genre-defying directions.
Guitarist Chris Martin comments: "We've channelled every bit of suffering, devastation, and emotion that we've experienced in recent years. We've never been so confident about our own material."
Helmed by Swedish super producer Jens Bogren (Sepultura, Opeth, Amon Amarth, Ihsahn) and featuring collaborations with Scott Kennedy (Bleed From Within) and modern shred virtuoso Bradley Hall, In Gravity sees Shrapnel breaking out of their shackles where others have failed, and staking their claim to the British metal throne.
Continuing, Chris adds, "As an album, In Gravity really has a focus on how we all deal with problems of varying extremities. We wanted to take a look at how some of the solutions to our problems become problems in of themselves, be that addiction or anything else.
"It's an album about how difficult it can be to face those problems many of us share. It was written during tragedy, and we're rolling it out during some difficult times for us. While we don't have the answers, we also realise that the ways we deal with issues is to create art, which in itself is a healer. We've really been holding the mirror up and exercising some demons on this one. It's led to the best album we've ever written, and something we hope will connect other people far more deeply than anything we've released previously."
Formed in 2009, Shrapnel have been on a campaign of destruction ever since. Previously supporting bands such as Exodus, Sepultura, Death Angel, Suicidal Tendencies, Wolf, Gama Bomb and appearing three times at Bloodstock Festival. Later this year the band are set to perform at Barbeuk Metal Festival in France. From the blistering underground EP No Saviours through to their critically acclaimed 2020 release, Palace For The Insane, the band have grown from strength to strength with no intention of slowing down. More live dates to follow, watch this space.
In Gravity Tracklisting
1. In Gravity
2. Amber Screams
3. Guardian
4. Breaker
5. Judgement
6. Dark Age
7. Follow The Cold
8. As Above…
9. …So Below
10. Absolution
Shrapnel online:
https://www.facebook.com/ShrapnelOfficial
Quelle: Head Of PR