Tag: The Church Starfish

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Formed in Western Massachusetts back in 1982, The Sighs initially began with its founding members Robert LaRoche (lead vocals, guitar) and Tommy Pluta (bass, vocals), two lifelong musicians, who had bonded over their mutual love of The Beach Boys, Crosby, Stills and Nash and other acts that employed the use of multi-part harmonies — and the duo of LaRoche and Pluta quickly learned that they own voices blended together beautifully.  Tom Borawaski (drums) and Matt Cullen (lead vocals, guitar) were recruited to flesh out the band’s sound and to complete their lineup, and as a quartet the band quickly made a name for themselves as a must-see live act across the region. As Tommy Pluta explains in press notes “One luxury of living in Western Mass is that we played all the colleges and clubs for years and years. By the time things started happening for us, we were primed for it — we sounded really tight and everything was just spot on.”

As the story goes, the members of The Sighs crossed pants with John DeNicola, an Oscar Award-winning songwriter, who co-wrote “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” and producer, and his production partner Tommy Allen at the China Club, the band signed with Charisma/Virgin Records and released What Goes On to critical acclaim; in fact, the band built upon a growing profile with tours with Gin Blossoms, Dada and others.

The Sighs third full-length effort Wait On Another Day is the first release from the Western Massachusetts-based indie rock quartet in over 20 years, and the material on the album can trace its origins to a recently unearthed batch of demos recorded on analog tapes back in the 90s that the band’s Matt Cullen stumbled upon. Once Cullen had shared the demos with his bandmates and their longtime producer John DeNicola, the members of the band decided to reconvene at DeNicola’s Upstate New York-based studio and revise a handful of songs; however, as the band’s drummer Tom Borawaski explains “.  .  . it all came together so well, and we were having such a great time, we ended up making a whole album. It really just took on a life of its own.”

“All the years of playing together left a permanent mark on us. It wasn’t too difficult to tap into our musical and personal bond again,” LaRoche says of the album, which occurred over a spontaneous five-day recording session. As Borawski adds, “Everything had more of a spark to it than when we made What Goes On, where we put all the songs under a microscope and tried to get it all completely perfect.” And as a result, the material possesses an uncommon urgency and vitality — of the sort the most bands wish they could capture on wax; but interestingly enough, as Pluta notes, the material on the album focuses on many of the things they had written about in the past: girls, getting kickedd around, hopes and dreams and falling in love. And perhaps because of the band’s age and experience, the material possesses the wistful tone of one, who has accepted both the passing of time, and the strange sense that the more things change, the more they manage to remain completely the same. So what if you’ve traveled the world, read the great novels, seen and done all that’s needed to be seen? Heartache is heartache and everyone knows it at some point, and life is about knowing what to do once your heart is broken again and again and again and again . . .

The album’s latest single “It’s Real” is jangling guitar pop paired with gorgeous harmonies, impressive guitar work, and the sort of anthemic hooks reminiscent of The Smithereens, Starfish, Gold Afternoon Fix and Forget Yourself-era The Church but with a swooning and urgent romanticism; after all, the song is about some of the classic rock ‘n’ roll tropes: wildly passionate love with that pretty young thing and the desperate excitement of it being real, for perhaps the first time and of finally achieving something that you’ve dreamt of for such a long time.

 

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Dreamlike and 80s MTV-Inspired Visuals for Radar Eyes’ “Community”

Featuring Anthony Cozzi (vocals, guitar), Russell Calderwood (guitar), Nithin Kalvakota (drums) and Lucas Sikorski (bass), Chicago, IL-based quartet Radar Eyes initially received attention for a fuzzy, garage rock sound, and with Cozzi’s relocation to Los Angeles, the quartet’s forthcoming effort Radiant Remains was in some way meant to be a swan song for the band — while being a sonic change in direction as the band’s material took on a decidedly 80s post-punk rock sound that channeled the likes of Crocodiles, Heaven Up Here and Ocean Rain-era Echo and the Bunnymen, Starfish-era The Church and others as you’ll hear on the album’s moody and shimmering first single “Community.” And much like the material that influenced it, “Community” reveals that the band has the ability to write material that possess an incredibly anthemic and rousing hook.

Directed by Laura Callier and featuring desert footage shot by Jason Ogawa, the recently released music video for “Community” manages to mesh the feel, spirit and imagery of contemporary videos with that of videos from MTV’s heyday — including a Peter Gabriel “Shock the Monkey”-like motif, in which the lead singer sits in front of screen in which various images are projected; sequences in which the band’s lead singer, dressed entirely in black is wandering around the desert, followed around by an equally mysterious man dressed entirely in white; along with some introductory sequences in which the band are hanging out with a bunch of folks at an outdoor bar. The video itself possesses a dreamlike logic while hitting upon the song’s sense of longing to fit into someplace.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Last month, I wrote about Brooklyn-based indie rock/shoegazer act Dinowalrus. Currently comprised of frontman Pete Feigenbaum, who has spent some time as a touring guitarist in Titus Andronicus; Max Tucker; Meaghan Omega; Dan Peskin; and John Atkinson, who joins the band as a touring member, the members of the band have received attention for a  sound that possesses elements of post-punk, krautrock, shoegaze, synth pop and psych rock — i.e., much like the single I wrote about last month “Tides” off the band’s forthcoming full-length FAIRWEATHER. The album’s second and latest single “Light Rain” is a shimmering and swooning track — thanks to shimmering guitar chords, ethereal synths and a propulsive groove– that sounds as though it cribs from Crocodiles and Heaven Up Here-era Echo and the Bunnymen and Starfish-era The Church.

 

 

 

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Some time ago, I interviewed the Brisbane, Australia-born and now Houston, TX area-based guitarist and vocalist Andrew Bower of the intercontinental collaboration the Valery Trails which features Bower’s Brisane-based brother and bassist, Sean and drummer […]