Tag: Pujol

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Earlier this month, I caught the Brooklyn-based alt rock duo Deaf Poets play on a bill featuring Chicago-based post-punk act Ganser and the Brooklyn-based New Wave act Winkie at Saint Vitus, and as you may recall, the up-and-coming rock duo, comprised of Miami Beach, FL-born, New York-based duo of Sean Wouters (vocals, guitar) and Nico Espinosa (vocals, percussion) can trace their origins to when they met in elementary school. During high school, Wouters and Espinosa went through a long process of musical experimentation, which ultimately led to their founding of Deaf Poets — and since their formation, the Miami Beach-born, New York-based duo have received attention for a sound that effortlessly meshes elements of 70s rock with 80s punk and 90s grunge.

While in their hometown, the duo cemented a place in South Florida’s indie scene, playing some of the area’s best known venues, including Churchill’s, Bardot, Gramps and Grand Central, ultimately being named “Best Band of Miami” in 2014 and one of the “20 Most Influential People of Miami” in 2015 by The Miami New Times. Adding to a growing profile, “Degenerate Mind” off their debut album 4150 was part of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 video game soundtrack and was featured as part of Classic Rock Magazine‘s 2014 compilation CD. Along with that, the duo became a regular presence at iiiPoints Festival, where they played four consecutive years on bills that have included Mac DeMarco and Unknown Mortal Orchestra. Additionally, they’ve opened for Matt and Kim and shared stages with Andy Rourke, The Ettes, Pujol, Jennie Vee, The Peach Kings, The Psychedelic Furs, The Growlers, and Dorothy.

Like countless hungry bands before them, the members of Deaf Poets recently relocated to New York, and unsurprisingly, their soon-to-be released EP Change & Bloom is reportedly inspired by the events and personal experiences that have transpired before and during their move, arguably making it one of the more personal and honest efforts of their young and growing catalog — and while the EP will further cement their reputation for swaggering crafting hard-hitting, power chord-based, arena rock, the EP’s latest single “Cigarette,” features a moody and expansive alternating quiet, loud, quiet  song structure centered around effortless time signature changes, tribal-influenced drumming and some impressive and forceful guitar pyrotechnics, revealing an ambitious band experimenting with both their sound and songwriting.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

I’ve been under the weather the past few days and haven’t been able to do as much as I would have preferred; however, with the massive snowstorm we received here in the NYC area, there wasn’t much that could have been done anyway, and I honestly needed the rest. Now, earlier this monthI wrote about Atlanta, GA-based indie rock band Flower. And as the story went, the band’s frontman and primary Jack Fowler had written the material off the band’s soon-to-be released album Waste of Life, while his life had felt as though it were in a holding pattern. Although he had a busy year as the frontman of exwhy, who had signed to Other People Records and toured with renowned indie acts Pujol and Knox Hamilton, Fowler desperately wanted to focus on revealing his vulnerable side — and in turn, felt a need to write material that was informed and inspired by other aspects of his own life; in fact, Waste of Life is heavily informed by Fowler’s experience as a 9-5 officer done. As Fowler has explained in press notes “I was working a pretty decent office job and doing absolutely nothing beyond working and getting depressed. I was just spinning my wheels and growing bored and really depressed. I was struggling with talking to people, being social at all. That’s the core of this album—anxiety and not being sure how to define yourself. ” Certainly, if you’re creative or just didn’t quite know what you wanted to actually do with yourself, those feelings of depression, anxiety and utter worthlessness is familiar. Odds are that you’ve lived that every single moment of your waking life — and you’ve dreamt of quitting to write a book, record an album or to just regain your dignity.

“Dreams,” which I wrote about three weeks ago possessed a pent up frustration over ambitions, hopes and a life that seem indefinitely stalled from some larger, unmoving (and unrelenting), outside force and not having an idea as to what would be the best thing to do next; so the song’s narrator winds up sitting inert and inactive on the sidelines out of fear of fucking everything up — and yet, hating himself for his inability to do anything at all. And despite the song’s desperation and hopelessness, there’s a subtle sense of hope; that things will get better and that somehow life will push you in the direction you need to be going even if you were unaware of it. Sonically, the song was reminiscent of  The Smiths and 80s post-punk as it paired bitter and confused sentiments with anthemic hooks, layers of shimmering guitar and driving rhythms.

Wasted Life’s latests single “Deadly Ill” may arguably be one of the more deceitfully straightforward post-punk songs on the album, as the anthemic hooks the band seems to specialize in are paired with thundering and propulsive drumming, angular guitar chords and an urgent desperation of someone who seems to be at the end of their rope with everyone and everything. But the irony at the core of the song is that the song’s narrator is trapped between a terrible certainty and an unknowable, unpredictable uncertainty. If you’ve been there the song feels as though it’s talking about your own personal experience in some way.

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

As the story goes, Flower‘s frontman and primary songwriter Jack Fowler wrote the band’s forthcoming album Waste of Life while in the middle of a holding pattern. Although he had a rather busy year as the frontman of exwhy, with the band signing to Other People Records and touring with Pujol and Knox Hamilton, Fowler desperately wanted to focus on revealing his vulnerable side; in fact, the album is inspired largely by Fowler’s own experience of being an office drone. As Fowler explains in press notes “I was working a pretty decent office job and doing absolutely nothing beyond working and getting depressed. I was just spinning my wheels and growing bored and really depressed. I was struggling with talking to people, being social at all. That’s the core of this album—anxiety and not being sure how to define yourself. ”

Waste of Life‘s latest single “Dreams” possesses a pent up frustration over ambitions, hopes and a life that seem indefinitely stalled from some larger, unmoving (and unrelenting), outside force and not having an idea as to what would be the best thing to do next; so the song’s narrator winds up sitting inert and inactive on the sidelines out of fear of fucking everything up — and yet, hating himself for his inability to do anything at all. And despite the song’s desperation and hopelessness, there’s a subtle sense of hope; that things will get better and that somehow life will push you in the direction you need to be going.

Sonically, the band pairs bitter and confused sentiment and anthemic hooks with layers of shimmering guitar and  driving rhythms in a song that sounds as though it draws influence from The Smiths and 80s post-punk. Much like the previous post, Flower’s sound is something that should sound warmly familiar to anyone who grew up in the 80s — but it manages to place that sound and feeling in high contemporary context, proving that the more things change, the more things wind up the same.