Supergroup Stateside 3
The very first time I heard the vocals of Megasoul Connectors Jonathan Mallaley I remember wrongly coming to the premature conclusion (after about 30 seconds) that it was all going to be just a little bit bland, but just as I was about to give up and move on, his vocals suddenly and unexpectedly burst out into an extrordinary barrage of almost unattainable pitch and octaves which (thankfully) made my lower jaw over susceptable to the effects of gravity, completely paralised my hand, and thus prevented me from being able to click the "next!" button for a whole week . A voice which sometimes resembles Inglesias in it's continental feel twists and turns and croons through the outfits debut album and bursts through that false sense of bland right up into the upper echalons of U2'S Bono, all with a similar attitude, to scream melodically like the opening cries of the 'madman' in Pink Floyds 'Dark Side of The Moon'. Floyd and U2 have often been used by others to describe the 'Megasoul' concept album sound - Mallely's lead guitar often gives the Edge a run for his money and there's even a Pink Floyd 'Wallesque' styled brass section to lead into the exceptional climactic and double barrelled two song finale that is 'Firefall ' and 'Connector' . Still, there's alot more to this concept than just mere echoes of the great concept albums of the past ( but even so, one brilliant 'echo' well worth mentioning is probably the best piece of explosive sax playing we've heard scince Hazel O'Connor 'spilt her coffee' while 'politely saying goodbye' on her 70's Breaking Glass concept album !).
The band had originaly 'connected' in Boston in 2001 during their final college years where vocalist and lead guitarist Mallaley's new rock threesome, also comprising of Kieth Krey on Drums and Jason Achilles Mezilis on bass, hooked up with much travelled Irishman Vinny Maloney ( Oboe, Sax and all orchestral arrangements) also in his final Boston music college year, to create the origins of the Megasoul sound. After finishing college, Johnny returned to L.A. where he grew up and Vinny re-located to L.A. from his Waterford home in Ireland. After the band set up in LA Vinny managed the band for four years before eventualy setting up a Megasoul shop, studio (and a new wife and family ) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from where he continued to compose and jointly arrange and manage the new sound with Mallaley online - whose entire Californian home was also turned into a studio for the LA branch of the 'Connection'. With extra sessions recorded in LA's Hobby Shop and Ballroom Studios with Mark Needham and Fred Archinbauld the album was then sent to Future Disc's Steve Hall for the final mastering and a worldwide release on the bands own label, VAM Music. We've included a couple of tracks from the album but if you want to hear that exceptional sax solo and lead work in the finale's mega climax you're going to have to buy the album from VAM or itunes with more on their musical Megasoul at the following links....
Megasoul Connector is one band, which after alot of hard work, is now fast on the way
to becoming a household name and their songs are finding continuous airplay on radio
stations worldwide so listen out for them and watch this space...
Our next Supergroup also gave us a quite a surprise on the vocal front too, as when that initial email arrived asking us to check them out..We did...and we actualy thought that Carol Decker was playing either an early April Fools day trick on us again or was just trying to get a genuine unbiased opinion for her latest new songs (see 'Bits for bands 4' for more on Carols latest successful online ventures) but no! Kill The Drama are a real, live and amazing new band from Pittsburgh and those outstanding vocals with an exceptional range actualy came from the mouth of a bloke! ( I had a similar problem with the cross gender vocalised twinning about a year ago when I was convinced that the Profile for 'The Script' was realy Natasha Bedingfield in disguise...ooops!). Equally surprising was the excess amount of musical drama contained in the Kill The Drama sound ...and we're talking edge of your seat ,eye popping, glued to the set type stuff here too.This band is going to be big - with or without the mistaken identity - and you can get stuck right into the middle of the intense drama by tapping into the following links ...some free downloads are also to be found - as long as you're very quick and Kill The Drama are definately on a well earned fast track to being not only the biggest sound in Pensylvania but also the whole of the States , so it shouldn't be too long before the airwaves of the rest of the world start to fall at their feet too.
There is this rumour flying around America that approximately half of the teenage girls of California have been confined to their rooms by their fathers ever scince a handfull of hormone laden teenage boys stole all the bandanas from Axel Rose's wardrobe and began using them to waft the potent pheremones of their teenrock spirit throughout the State under the guise of an 'ambient indie rock band'. Unfortunately it also seems that what most of those distraught fathers who are locking up their daughters don't understand, is that all of their daughters are actualy swooning over the band online in the gleefull privacy of their own online confinement....so unless all you overly protective, paranoid parents sneek back in there and take out their computers and mobiles they won't even care if you throw away the key! ...And, as you know that you'll probably never ever beat them over this, you'd be much better off by pulling up a stool and joining them instead.
Yup, it seems that teenage girls everywhere are dreaming, drooling and scribbling the word 'dRIVE' anywhere they can with an evergrowing intensity because these teenage boys have fast matured -physicaly, musicaly and emotionaly, into men. 'We make beautiful music' has become the bands 'motto' and not only is this true but their delivery of these positively charged rock ballads and love songs is so strong that it could still end up generating the same kind of mass female hysteria that Billy Thorpe and the Beatles did throughout the sixties- and would probably still do so even if all these 'boys' were all 'absolutely butt ugly' ( and unfortunately for Californias fathers...they're not!) !
Exelently crafted lyrics spill out of these songs with a passionate enough drive to silence any critic or image mocker and anyone who laughs at their youthfull 'Guns n Roses' look is stopped dead in their tracks upon actualy hearing titles such as 'Truth and Lies', 'All I Need' or 'Unbroken'.
These are all truly gifted guys and 'dRIVE' are Stan Newton and Jeff Matej, along with Shaun Manley, Joel Slusser and Bryan Maxam and you can either buy their debut album via iTunes or go for a nice long relaxing drive with them throughout their musical landscape by clicking on the ignition button, here...
Now beyond the shores of the United States the city of Detroit is usualy thought of solely as the birthplace of Motown . What many don't know is that the Motown Record Label shipped out of Michigan and moved to LA one weekend and not only left half of their artists behind but did'nt even tell them they were going either! Strangely enough this has also been quite a common occurance among artists and bands concieved in the city both before and after becoming famous...with one of those most reknowned sons of the 'rock' scene born to the city being Alice Cooper.
Alice had actualy deserted the city while still a child, trading the cold damp winters of the midwest for the dry burning heat of Arizona. Later, after capturing a few snakes, his girlfriends eyeliners and the glam rock bug, he turned Arizona into one of the many capitol States of rock and metal, making the state a place of pilgrimage for many rock bands seeking to tread the boards on the front line of rock and heavy metal. One particular band treading in footsteps that would feel very familiar to Alice are Detroit migrants The Scenery and just like Mr Cooper they also traded in the grey skies of Detroit to test their hardened midwestern steel in the furnaces of the Arizona rock scene.
Bass player Russel Hatfield was the first to leave Michigan on a two year solo pilgrimage that also took in the sights and sounds of New York and Florida before finaly settling in Meza last year.
February 2008 saw the arrival in Meza of three more Detroit musicians in the form of Mike Freeland (guitar), Jordan D' Emidio,(vocals) and Anthony Daraban (vocals and guitars) who stumbled accross Russel at a party soon after ariving in the city. After instantly gelling the sound of The Scenery quickly took shape and also inspired former 'Scary Kids Scaring Children' drummer and reknouned Arizonan producer Justin Salter to get back into the drum seat and drive the Scenery sound to an even more scenic musical destination both in and out of the studio (Justin had originaly surrendered his career sticks in favour of production at Meza's Saltmine Studios -founded by his father- after a speeding car left him seriously injured just when the 'Scary Kids' were about to realy take off and go on another tour). This new bands midwestern metal has become a brilliant melting pot filled with a volcanic caldera of new sound.
Molten vocals smoothly flow, burn and weave through channels etched out with heaving and intricate lead guitars that often disguise themselves as rythm, it's lava continuously jumping backwards and forwards through quick key changes and equally sudden temperature fluctuations as time signatures are manipulated beyond belief through a pyroclastic flow of sound that is now rewriting the Arizonan musical landscape . Despite musical traces that may see their dual vocals being compared to Limp Buiscuit or Linkin Park or those intricately worked key changes that give a jazz rock feel (similar to Yes in their 'Roundabout' days), The Scenery and their pyroclastic musical flow are literaly carving out a new path of sound for modern rock. One of those new areas is in the realms of musical tempo where sudden tweeks see riffs elevete to the equivelent of a 78rpm back to a 45 or 33 before grinding to a sudden halt and silence before releasing the pent up energy back in to the full musical flow again. "So what?"you may think " bands of been twidling with tempo on their albums for years...probably ever scince that first little dog ignored ' his masters voice' and sat on the turntable" you may well say . Well, yes, thats true...but how many bands have been able to accuratly recreate those effects and studio tweeks with their own instruments live on stage...? You'd probably be lucky to find enough bands to count on one hand (or is it finger?...) that are accurately able to recreate every tweek live without a backing track or 'mimes'... and just as the Silversun Pickups are being regularly approached by countless fans to ask 'just how they make those awesome sounds on stage?' so too do fans now approach the Scenery with similar questions.In just a few short months their metal has been firmly tried and tested, both individualy and as a band, and their steely resolve is currently manifested in one of the most original recordings we've heard in recent months.
Keep a keen eye and ear out for their debut releases in 2009 and also look out for forthcoming tour dates due to be announced shortly via their links. We've included two tracks to whett your appetite with plenty more exceptional works in the pipeline as we speek.
For the new musical landscapes being created by The Scenery go here...
For those of you who don't yet know who Justins former band ' Scary Kids Scaring Children' (currently signed to RCA) are, then you can find their streamlined Arizonan metal here...
...You can also keep an eye and ear out for more outstanding bands in the new upcoming Stateside 4,5,6 and 7 pages as they unfurl throughout 2009 alongside our other international Supergroup pages . So keep checking back for more soon...
Mairtin O'Riain and Martin Ryan copyright 2009 The Ryan O'Riain22
all music remains the sole property of and appears courtousy of featured artists...
SO FOLLOW THE LINKS, SUPPORT THEM AND BUY IT!!
