It is not so much a sound as a spirit. You don't need to name it to know it or to trust it. Peter Wolf Crier's second album Garden of Arms is a document that paints a vivid portrait of all the pain and beauty of growth. Written with the at-home repose demanded by performing a hundred shows in six months, these eleven tracks were nurtured from their hushed origins with a new-found footing of confidence and experimentation. Adapting the tenets of the grinding live show, the duo of Peter Pisano and Brian Moen transformed the fuzzy distortion, rolling and crashing drums, and laser-focused purposefulness into an intensely dynamic yet supremely polished album.
The lead off track, "Right Away", best exemplifies the band's new direction, a dense and jarring embrace of the immediacy of real personal connection. Later on in the album, restraint is more readily apparent, in tracks like "Settling it Off", where the sonics do not threaten to overwhelm but are instead peeled back to reveal a more subdued, secure sense of direction.
The notion that any one of these songs could be your favorite depending on where your head and heart reside, moment to moment, is the most appealing aspect of this album. Throughout Garden of Arms, swagger is juxtaposed against an icy delicacy, making the scope of the record complex but somehow an easily digestible statement of how Peter Wolf Crier are rolling: a wheel, rusted with unrestrained hope.
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New York was wearing on Kyle Wilson, lead singer & songwriter for the Brooklyn-based quintet Milagres. So he took off, away from the city and his band and his issues… all the way to the coldest, most remote part of British Columbia where he could get some space and breathe. As so often happens in life, he got a little more space than he bargained for – during a rock climbing trip he fell and ended up spending months bedridden with a back injury. Before he left New York, Wilson had thought he might leave the band behind entirely. But during the long days of his recovery he found himself writing songs again, and he realized he wanted to go back.
Upon his return to NYC, Wilson drafted Fraser McCulloch (bass, backing vocals, keys) into his new vision of Milagres, sharing with him the arrangements that he dreamt of while recovering from his injury. These demos were then refined with the addition of Eric Schwortz (guitar, backing vocals, percussion), Chris Brazee (piano/keys) and Steven Leventhal (drums, percussion), evolving into what would become the new group’s first LP, Glowing Mouth.
The musical scope of the album is big and due to the piano-based melodies and soaring falsettos, early press has compared the band to artists as diverse as Grizzly Bear and Prince, demonstrating the wide breadth of Milagres material. The first single, "Glowing Mouth", is a slow-burner made for dancing close on a hot summer night, whereas "Here To Stay" has a keyboard hook that won’t let you sleep. Kyle Wilson has a knack for writing dreamy story songs that also pack a punch in both chorus and melody. Songs like "Gentle Beast" and "Gone" suck you in and then haunt you for days afterwards – this is an album that stays with you.
Milagres: Here To Stay
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Forged in late summer nights surrounding a dying bonfire at camp 1538, Spirits and the Melchizedek Children began as lead singer Jason Elliott’s acoustic ramblings. His opened-ended lullabies and ballads developed in equal measures of melody, psychedelic meanderings, and eulogies to times past. After several months of recording solo, Elliott’s personal lullabies were fortified with the addition of band mates Chris Case, Darrin Harrison, Joe McNeilll, and Craig Henderson. A slightly different incarnation of the group, which now features Bryan Fielden of San Agustin on drums and no Darrin Harrison. The newly formed band gave Elliott’s songs an unprecedented depth and intangible appeal. Spirits and the Melchizdek Children have been praised by Atlanta-based music critic Chad Radford as “[creating] a sparse, ghostly, art-folk din that moves from a 4 a.m. whisper of distant, lonely strumming and moaning to a roar of tape hiss.” Evolving from crackling static into sonorous melody and back again, Spirits has melodic sensibility gently woven into the chaotic fabric of their haunting arrangements. Unapologetically unexpected and comfortingly familiar, Spirits and the Melchizedek Children’s ambient appeal provides the soundtrack to lost summers, new loves, and the hopeful yearning of beginning again.
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$8 in adv, $10 DOS, 18+
Doors @ 8:30 pm
Advance tickets available @ Ticket Alternative, Criminal Records,
Decatur CD, Fantasyland Records and the following CD Warehouse locations: Buford, Duluth, Kennesaw, Lawrenceville and Roswell.
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