Tag: Today Is The Day

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Share Breathtaking and Cinematic “Today Is The Day”

JOVM mainstays Still Corners — vocalist and keyboardist Tessa Murray and multi-instrumentalist, producer and songwriter Greg Hughes — will be releasing their long-awaited sixth album, Dream Talk on April 5, 2024 through the band’s own label Wrecking Light Records. 

The album’s material was written in Southern France, East Sussex, UK and Woodstock. “The songs came together quickly and being able to write from anywhere kept up our momentum,” Still Corners’ Tessa Murray says. Produced by the band’s Greg Hughes at their Woodstock-based studio, Hughes says, “We tried various things like different mics, amps and effects before committing to anything. Everything was mixed analog through our new SSL console, there’s a gleam to the sound.”

The album features ten carefully-crafted songs that sees the acclaimed duo further mastering a sound and overall body of work that is focused, stylish and incredibly seductive. “The genesis for a lot of these songs came from dreams. Every night I would write down the dreams I could remember,” Still Corners’ Murray says. “While recording I would pull out my book of dreams and sing over various looped phrases Greg had been working on. The repetitive nature of the looping and singing almost felt like going into a trance. A lot of the songs came from that process, it was fun and what I thought were sort of ramblings ended up surprising us with their various meanings and imagery.”

So far I’ve written about two of the album’s singles: 

  • “Secret World,” which saw the acclaimed JOVM mainstays pairing Murray’s imitable smoky croon with a shimmering and looping Western-tinged guitar line, twinkling and atmospheric synths and a gently driving rhythm. “Secret World,” continues a remarkable run of dreamy yet alluring material with a hint of danger — like the mythical sirens on the rocky shore seducing sailors to their eventual watery doom. Thematically, the song ruminates upon the perils of obsession. “Sometimes the thought of someone, wanting to know them, get into their world is dangerous,” Tessa Murray explains. “The real person doesn’t matter anymore, just the fantasy of them, which is totally wrong but feels right.”

  • Built around a shimmering and reverb-drenched guitar line that would make Johnny Marr proud paired, Dream Talk‘s second single “The Dream” featured a quick-paced rhythm, train-like rhythm, atmospheric synths and shakers serving as a lush bed for Murray’s smoky croon describing riding on a speeding train at night and a classically epic tale of being within “a dream within a dream,” before ending with a breathtaking guitar solo. “The Dream” is classic Still Corners — shimmering yet broodingly noir-ish, and always cinematic. Thematically, the new single is inspired by and indebted to a quote from Shakespeare: “Are you sure that we are awake? It seems to me that yet we sleep, we dream.” 

  • “Crystal Blue,” a slow-burning and atmospheric torch song featuring twinkling percussion, softly padded drums and a bit of marimba, Murray’s smoky and yearning croon and a shimmering and expressive Hughes guitar solo. Seemingly channeling a handful of great 1980s ballads, “Crystal Blue” is about two lovers, separated by the sea, dreaming of their eventual reunion. Hours, days, nights and weeks go by with the waves and the moonlight being the only companions to their longing and heartache. 

Written in Woodstock, Dream Talk‘s fourth and latest single “Today Is The Day” is anchored around a breathtakingly lush, cinematic arrangement featuring acoustic guitar, bass, reverb-soaked electric and an orchestral coda. Evoking the subtle hints of warmth in Spring’s earliest days, “Today Is The Day” reminds the listener of two essential facts: change is one of life’s few constants and that you need to live for today.

“You have all sorts of connections with songs you write but some seem to connect on a deeper level for whatever reason and this song does that for us. I think there were two sides to this song, one is that we wanted to say something about seizing the moment as life is precious and tomorrow is not promised and that is echoed in the chorus, ‘Today is the Day’ etc.  On the other side there’s this connection to nature and that’s peppered throughout the lyrics as well.  Yeats once said, ‘The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.’  I really believe that and when we were out filming this video by all the trees and birds and just hearing that acoustic guitar out there, it felt ancient and old and it was something I had to be reminded of.  Sitting there by the brook I thought maybe I’ll be lucky and catch a glimpse of something deeper.” 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Marshall Kilpatric, a.k.a. Der Baron M. Kilpatric has spent the past two-plus decades as a drummer for a number of different bands including Black Light Burns, The Esoteric, Seaspin, Kylesa, F-Minus, Today is the Day and others. 

Kilpatric stepped away from the music industry for several years to refocus and evolve in other areas of his life. But back in 2020, the grizzled music industry veteran began to step out into the limelight as a solo artist when he started his recording project The Behaviour, a representation of the sounds, harmonies and noises he has heard in his head and ringing in his ears for quite some time. 

The project’s full-length debut, A Sin Dance is slated for a September 15, 2023 release. While the project — and in turn, its full-length but — has been brought to life with a vision of artistic integrity, passion and substance informed by his decades of experience and intuition. The album’s material is meant to be a cathartic, a medicine for melancholy, a remedy for repressed emotion, an enlightenment for evolving senses, Kilpatric explains. 

Earlier this week, I wrote about album single “Burning of the Neon Dream,” a slithering and serpentine track that brought Queens of the Stone Age and Josh Homme‘s The Desert Sessions to mind with the song built around arena rock friendly power chords and enormous, remarkably catchy hooks.

A Sin Dance‘s second and latest single, the slow-burning and expansive “An Untouchable Relic” continues a run of material indebted to Queens of the Stone Age and Josh Homme‘s The Desert Sessions but with subtle elements of 80s metal and shoegaze paired with propulsive, building rhythm. As Kilpatrick explains, the song is “an ode to unrequited desires for something unattainable perhaps . . .”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Marshall Kilpatric, a.k.a. Der Baron M. Kilpatric has spent the past two-plus decades as a drummer for a number of different bands including Black Light Burns, The Esoteric, Seaspin, Kylesa, F-Minus, Today is the Day and others.

Kilpatric stepped away from the music industry for several years to refocus and evolve in other areas of his life. Back in 2020, the grizzled music industry veteran began to step out into the limelight as a solo artist when he started his recording project The Behaviour, a representation of the sounds, harmonies and noises he has heard in his head and ringing in his ears for quite some time.

The project’s full-length debut, A Sin Dance is slated for a September 15, 2023 release. While the project — and in turn, its full-length but — has been brought to life with a vision of artistic integrity, passion and substance informed by his decades of experience and intuition. The album’s material is meant to be a cathartic, a medicine for melancholy, a remedy for repressed emotion, an enlightenment for evolving senses, Kilpatric explains.

A Sin Dance‘s latest single “Burning of the Neon Dream,” is a slithering and serpentine-like track that brings Queens of the Stone Age and Josh Homme‘s The Desert Sessions to mind with the song being built around arena rock friendly power chords and enormous, remarkably catchy hooks.


Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Currently comprised of founding member Trevere Thomas (guitar, vocals) along with Douglas Andrae (drums) and Alex Ricart (bass), the Richmond, VA-based noise rock/math rock/metal act Hex Machine can trace their origins to its formation by Thomas, Municipal Waste‘s and Human Remains‘ Dave Witte (drums) back in 2004. Over the course of two EPs and two full-length albums — 2009’s Omen Mas and 2012’s critically applauded Fixator, the Richmond-based act firmly cemented a sound that drew from from The Jesus Lizard, Melvins and the Dischord Records catalog, but with their own unique take; in fact, Fixator found the band flirting with anthemic choruses, metallic drumming and a wider ranger of guitar sounds, which in some way would foreshadow what was to come for the band. And as a result of a growing profile, the members of Hex Machine toured with the likes of Clutch and Melt-Banana.

After a series of lineup changes and the release of their sophomore album, Thomas and Andrae joined Today Is The Day as the band’s rhythm section, playing behind Steve Austin for hundreds of shows across the world. Interestingly, Hex Machine’s forthcoming album Cave Painting, which is slated for a June 21, 2019 release through Travere’s own label Minimum Underdrive, is the Richmond-based trio’s first album in seven years.  Reportedly inspired by Thomas and Andrae’s time in Tday Is The Day, Cave Painting‘s material finds the band pairing their sludgy and lurching rhythms with elements of 80s New Wave — in particular XTC, The Police, Killing Joke and The Psychedelic Furs; in fact, Hex Machine covers one of my favorite Psychedelic Furs songs on the album, “President Gas.”

Cave Painting‘s latest single is the bruising “Scimitar Blues.” Centered around layers of sludgy power chords, red-hot flashes of hi-hat and thunderous drumming and growled vocals, the song sounds as though it were inspired by Sisters of Mercy and Chain of Flowers — but with oddly shifting time signatures and moods, which give the song a menacing and downright evil vibe.

Hex Machine will be on tour throughout July. Check out the tour dates below.

Tour Dates
July 17 – Richmond, VA @ Wonderland w/ The Wayward
July 18 – Raleigh, NC @ Slim’s w/ The Wayward
July 19 – Athens GA @ Caledonia Lounge w/ The Wayward
July 20 – Atlanta, GA @ The Bakery w/ The Wayward
July 22 – St Louis, MO @ FOAM w/ The Wayward
July 24 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Howlers w/ The Wayward, Microwaves
July 25 – Cambridge, MA @ Hong Kong w/ The Wayward
July 27 – Philadelphia, PA @ Mothership w/ The Wayward, Stinking Lizaveta