Tag: Dreamers

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the past 13-15 months or so, JOVM has managed to catch the up-and-coming Brooklyn-based post punk/psych pop act Monograms on a couple of bills around town. And as you may recall, the band initially began as the solo recording project of its founding member Ian Joseph; however, since expanding into a full-fledged band, Monograms has received a growing profile, as they’ve opened for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, GøGGS (a side project featuring Ty Segall and members of JOVM mainstay Ex-Cult) Ezra Furman, Sunflower Bean, APTBS‘ Dion Lunadon, Quilt, Dreamers, Spires and others.

The band’s latest single “Sleep Cycle” finds the band experimenting and expanding upon their sound, with the single briefly nodding at 90s grunge rock and Gang of Four-like post punk as they pair fuzzy power chords with a propulsive and angular bass chords, forceful drumming and an anthemic hook, creating an ambitious and arena rock friendly song that manages to retain a sweaty, mosh pit worthiness.

Monograms has an upcoming show on Monday night at Brooklyn’s newest venue Elsewhere with Journalism and Obliques.

Check out the Facebook event page for more info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1450449005069867/

 

 

 

indie rock by William Ruben Helms

(Credit: Violet Foulk)

Currently comprised of founding member Nick Wold (vocals, guitar), Marc Nelson (bass, vocals) a.k.a. Nelson, and Jacob Wick (drums), the up-and-coming Los Angeles, CA-based indie trio DREAMERS can actually trace their origins back to New York. As the story goes, the band’s Wold moved from his hometown of Seattle, WA to attend New York University’s Steinhart School to study jazz saxophone, and he quickly formed a grunge rock-inspired band Motive, along with Chris Bagamery, who Wold had known back in Seattle. Interestingly, after Motive split up, Wold had been living and writing songs in a Brooklyn rehearsal space when he and Bagamery met Nelson, who they recruited to join their new project — DREAMERS.

The trio’s debut single “Wolves (You Got Me)”  was released in July 2014 and quickly landed regular rotation on Sirius XM’s Alt Nation and was included on their Danny Kalb-produced, self-titled debut EP, which was released later that year. They ended the year with Alternative Press naming them one of their 100 Bands You Need To Know. With growing buzz around them, the trio signed a record deal with Fairfax Recordings and with a busy touring schedule, the band eventually relocated to Los Angeles; however, they went through a lineup change with Bagamery leaving the band and being replaced by their current drummer Jacob Lee Wick, who joined at the end of 2015.

 

DREAMERS ended 2015 with the release of their sophomore EP You Are Here, which featured “Shooting Shadows,” which was cowritten by Wold and Atlas Genius‘ Keith Jeffery, “Wolves (You Got Me)” and “Drugs,” among others — and they were wound up being selected (out of 500 aspiring bands) to open for Grammy Award-winning and-nominated act Stone Temple Pilots, during a select schedule of West Coast dates. Adding to a steadily growing profile, the band released their full-length debut This Album Does Not Exist,” which features many of the aforementioned songs and its first official single “Sweet Disaster.”  

Since then the band has been busy with a rather busy touring schedule that has included the summer festival circuit, and in fact, I wound up chatting with the band’s Nelson after their closing day set at The Meadows Music and Arts Festival at Citi Field last weekend. (More on that in future.) Recorded on my trusty iPhone 6s (so you do get the general ambience of a press area at a festival, including the 7 train above us), we chatted about the band’s formation and influences, as well as his advice on how artists can make a name for themselves; but along with that, Nelson shares a touching story about an incredible act of kindness by Chester Bennington during their stint opening for Stone Temple Pilots, and he updates us on Lil’ Trucker, the abandoned kitten the band found while on tour in Texas. Check it out.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

With the release of their debut effort Dreaming, the Brooklyn-based trio Graveyard Lovers — comprised of Zach Reynolds (vocals, guitar), Tricia Purvis (drums) and Joel Reynolds (bass, guitar) — quickly received national attention for a sound that was compared favorably to the likes of Pixies, Sonic Youth and others. Building upon the buzz of their debut, the band’s music has been heard in a variety of movies and TV series including Showtime’s Shameless — and they’ll be releasing their album Past The Forest Of The Fruitless Thoughts in two parts, with part one in June and part two slated for release later this year. Part one’s first single “Told A Lie” will further cement the Brooklyn trio’s growing reputation for crafting 90s alt rock-inspired indie rock as the band pairs layers of jangling and buzzing guitars, throbbing bass lines and plaintive vocals with incredibly anthemic hooks — but with some electronics towards the bridge to add a subtly modern touch to a familiar and winning formula.

The band will be playing a Thursday night residency at Piano’s in the Lower East Side with one of the shows celebrating the release of “Told A Lie.”