This week we have new music from one of Wales' finest rock bands, electrifying blues rock and some spine-tingling Americana
Scarlet Rebels - 'Secret Drug'
Having already hoisted their flag into the UK Top 10 with their previous album 'See Through Blue', South Wales' Scarlet Rebels are poised to fire Welsh rock back into the mainstream spotlight with their new album 'Where The Colours Meet', announced today.
Accompanying this hotly anticipated announcement (which was stoked further with frontman Wayne Doyle's recent feature and live set on Times Radio's Friday night show with Ed Vaizey) comes the new single “Secret Drug”. An anthemic stomper that pays dues to Stereophonics, The Cult and AC/DC, “Secret Drug” pairs classic Angus Young-style guitar swagger with an arena-sized chorus. There’s a new, widescreen ambition at play here, ably supported by the crack production team of Colin Richardson and Chris Clancy in the studio.
Doyle comments: 'We're incredibly excited to show the world what we've been up to. “Secret Drug” is the first chapter from our new story and we're so happy that we can finally unleash it on the world. It marks a new era for the band, defined by a feeling of bold new confidence that we have to thank our fans for since the release of our previous album 'See Through Blue'. The positivity that they bring to our world shines bright on ‘Where The Colours Meet’.
'With 'Where The Colours Meet', we made an album of unity, a call for togetherness in a world gone mad. Our last album was deliberately polarising – I don't regret that, and it was amazing to see everyone who did choose to stand with us as we spoke the truth about the wicked forces working in our world. But this time around, we made an album that will bring people together,' Doyle continues.
'I genuinely feel it’s the best set of songs we’ve written. The band's performance is superb and Colin [Richardson] and Chris [Clancy] brought totally new ideas and focus to our music. We hope you enjoy this album as much as we enjoyed making it.'
The new video was shot with Shaun Hodson of Loki Films (Kris Barras Band, Those Damn Crows).
'Where The Colours Meet' sees the band radically expand their sonic palette, bringing in lush instrumentation, piano, keyboards and large drum sounds to channel the best of 80s rock. It’s an album full of fluid guitar lines, tasteful leads and irresistible choruses but with a contemporary full-on sound - a modern-day U2-meets-Bruce Springsteen.
'The album is an ode to the influences who made us the musicians we are today (Springsteen, Petty and Stereophonics, we’re looking at you), as well as the experiences who made us the people we are today,' Doyle adds.
The album also welcomes collaborations with multi-award-winning blues artist Elles Bailey, who brings her velvety vocals to the co-written “Out Of Time”, and Ricky Warwick (Black Star Riders, The Almighty), who lends his songwriting prowess to the high-octane stomper and album closer, “My House My Rules”. Diehards will spot that two songs from Scarlet Rebels’ live sets come to life too, as “Let Me In” and “Practice Run”, which have been fixtures at their concerts, are now heard on a proper studio recording for the first time.
Having made a name for themselves collecting items for food banks at their live shows, Scarlet Rebels are giving charity shops first access to their new music. Eagle-eyed fans will see the vivid ‘Where The Colours Meet’ vinyl sleeves begin to appear in their local charity shops from today, offering fans a sneak peek at their new music in return for donations to local charities such as Nottingham’s Emmanuel House. 100 preview copies will be distributed to charity shops across the UK.
'Where The Colours Meet' is out on 16th August 2024 and is available to pre-order on limited edition vinyl, signed CD, collector's bundles and more at earache.com/scarletrebels
Pre-order Album - https://earache.lnk.to/WhereTheColoursMeet
Secret Drug is out now on all digital platforms - https://earache.lnk.to/SecretDrug
Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown - 'Snake Oil'
Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown announce their brand new, 11-track album Electrified whose no holds barred first single Snake Oil is released today Friday 12th April, along with its accompanying video. The band are releasing the album May 10th on their very own independently owned and operated label Rattle Shake Records.
Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown fields Tyler Bryant himself as fiery frontman on vocals and his signature pink Stratocaster, Caleb Crosby thumping the drums con gusto, and Graham Whitford on guitar.
The band rate Electrified is their most authentic release yet. “I think about the ‘Electrified’ recordings as sonic snapshots of who we are right now,” says Tyler, “It’s so easy to get red light fever when recording. I think since we started our own label and have been writing and recording music all the time, the whole process has become a little bit more normal, allowing us to be a little more at ease. In turn, I think this is potentially our most “authentically us” sounding album.”
For drummer Caleb Crosby, “This album feels like the culmination of where we've been and where we want to be. I feel we pushed the boundaries even more for ourselves on this project.”
Reflecting on the inspirations for Snake Oil — the first single to drop from the album —Tyler explains, “Two of my favorite rock bands are The Black Crowes and Blackberry Smoke. So many of my favorite times have been spent at their shows or with their tunes playing in the background. I desperately wanted to write a song in the spirit of these bands that I love, and I ended up with Snake Oil.”
Recorded at TBSD’s musical headquarters, ‘The Lily Pad’, in Nashville, Tennessee, Electrified’s tracks demonstrate the band’s deeply held musical philosophy, that “In a fast-moving, increasingly digital world, vintage tube gear is considered obsolete by the majority, but for those still living on the fringes of time, there’s a quality of magic when pieces of gear from a different age power up — the dim glow of vacuum tubes purposefully burning and generating heat in the close quarters of a control room.’”
Snake Oil’s video captures the band’s force and energy. The one drawback is that the black and white visuals don’t show off Tyler’s signature pink Strat, an iconic instrument which the Fender Custom Shop have homaged by releasing a very special, made-on-demand, limited-edition guitar. Nevertheless, the video’s stark but energetic visuals, complete with ghostly echoes, show Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown infusing the music with electrifying energy, including Tyler’s soaring guitar solo.
Riffing on electricity, the band reflect, “For those watching meters, there’s always a dip in voltage around 6 o’clock. When workaday folks get home and start turning on their televisions and firing up their microwaves, the hum of electricity goes crackling down the power lines, lighting up the windows of house after house, street after street, mile after mile. But when the Moon has been high for hours and, slowly but surely, the nearby world starts to fall asleep — that’s when workanight folks, like Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown, come alive.”
And come alive they do! Check out the killer combo of old school analogue equipment sound, fresh talent and soul-filled savvy songwriting that Tyler Bryant and The Shakedown bring into today’s limelight.
LISTEN AT YOUR OWN RISK. BEWARE OF ELECTRICAL SHOCK.
See website for updates and further details. http://www.tylerbryantandtheshakedown.com/
Julian Taylor - 'Weighing Down'
Award-winning, Toronto-based, Americana/folk singer-songwriter Julian Taylor has released a brand-new single, 'Weighing Down', a track that seeks to lighten one’s load with uplifting encouragement. It’s one of those chilling, powerful tracks that gets the hairs on your arms to stand up.
“What it also does is address the idea that, ‘All of us are our own worst enemies. All of us are so hard on ourselves,’” Taylor explains. “That kind of pressure, and the way it affects our health, both mentally and physically – that’s the weighing down of the world we put on our own shoulders because of things we think we’ve done wrong. What I’m saying here is, ‘I’ve got to relieve myself from all of this hurt – and so do you.’”
'Weighing Down' is the first single from Taylor’s forthcoming album, Pathways, which will be released September 27, 2024 on the Howling Turtle, Inc. label. The album follows on the heels of his most recent solo LPs, 2020’s highly acclaimed, award-winning album, The Ridge (which garnered Taylor’s anointing as Solo Artist of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards) and 2022’s equally lauded album, Beyond the Reservoir (nominated for two Juno Awards and three Canadian Folk Music Awards), as well as his 2023 career retrospective release, Anthology Vol. 1.
Besides the first single ('Weighing Down'), Taylor plans a series of additional singles from Pathways leading up to the album release later this year, including: 'Running Away' on May 29th; 'Sixth Line Road' on July 10th; and 'Pathways' (featuring Allison Russell) on August 21st. More details about the album will be announced soon.
Even when he’s recording and touring, Taylor remains busy with his long-running, weekly, three-hour radio show, “Julian Taylor’s Jukebox,” which is distributed by Native Voice One (NV1), the Native public radio distribution service which links over 200 stations across North America to Native radio programming, from reservation and village-based stations to top-market urban radio stations. The radio show is a genre-defying musical journey, focusing on BIPOC and independent artists like Taylor himself. The concept for “Julian Taylor's Jukebox” came from the Rowe AMI vintage jukebox in Taylor’s home, inviting listeners to hear what he would play for them if they were hanging out with him in his living room.
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Taylor plans to tour in support of his new music, with confirmed tour dates in Canada and Europe, and plans to also hit the UK later this year including festival appearances at The Long Road and the British Country Music Festival - more dates to follow. With a live show that always wows audiences, Taylor caught the attention of Jeremy Vine of BBC Radio 2 last year at his show in London, who proclaimed that Taylor is “an incredible, profound, thoughtful, musical genius” on the social media platform X. Fans should follow Taylor on social media and his website for announcements of additional tour dates.
Julian Taylor UK/EU Tour Dates:
June 14 – Bertinoro, Italy | Rocca Vescovile
June 15 – Pigra, Italy | La Societa Operaia
June 17 – Bolzano, Italy | Pippo Stage
June 18 – Traona, Italy | Giardino del Municipio
June 22 – Lelystad, Netherlands | Corneel
June 23 – Bever, Belgium | Rosario
June 24 – Eindhoven, Netherlands | Muziekgebouw
June 30 – Castelvetro, Italy | Lambruscheria ca Berti
August 23-25 – The Long Road Festival
August 22 – 31 – UK Tour (dates to be announced soon)
August 30 - Sept 1 – British Country Music Festival
ABOUT JULIAN TAYLOR:
Toronto-based singer-songwriter Julian Taylor has been part of the musical fabric and landscape in Canada for two decades. Taylor enjoyed a breakthrough year in 2020, when his second solo acoustic album, The Ridge, earned more than five million plays on Spotify, praise from press worldwide, and airplay from America to Australia to the U.K. Loaded with soulful Americana and country twang, the album was produced by Taylor himself and Saam Hashemi, and was recorded at The Woodshed in Toronto. In addition to winning Taylor Solo Artist of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards, The Ridge was also nominated for: two Juno Awards (Contemporary Folk Album of The Year, Indigenous Artist or Group of the Year), the Polaris Prize Long List, a Summer Solstice Indigenous Award (Contemporary Folk Album of the Year), a Canadian Music Week INDIES Award (Indigenous Artist of the Year), and an additional Canadian Folk Music Awards nomination in the English Songwriter of the Year category. The nominations and awards kept coming in 2022, with Taylor winning best male artist in the International Acoustic Music Awards and scoring five Native American Music Award nominations. In 2023, Taylor received a nomination in the Country Music Association of Ontario Awards in the Roots Artist of the Year category, and a further nomination for a Juno Award in the Contemporary Indigenous Artist of the Year category.
Taylor is a major label veteran, Toronto music scene staple, and musical chameleon. His versatility as a songwriter is signature; one minute he’s onstage playing with his band spilling out electrified rhythm and blues glory, and the next he’s featured at a folk festival delivering a captivating solo singer-songwriter set. Formerly associated with the band Staggered Crossing, he has continued to record and perform as a solo artist and has released 12 studio albums since 2001. With his songs being placed in such TV shows as “Haven,” “Private Eyes,” “Kim’s Convenience,” “Degrassi: The Next Generation,” and “Elementary,” his versatility as a songwriter is signature. He has had four albums on the long list of the Polaris Prize in Canada and has charted on several Canadian and Indigenous Music Charts. Two songs from The Ridge album, the title track 'The Ridge', and 'Human Race', went to #1 on the Indigenous Music Countdown, while the Julian Taylor Band song 'Back Again' hit #3 on the same chart.
Taylor is as explosive and captivating a live performer as you’ll ever see. Taylor has toured Canada and the U.S. countless times, sharing the stage with the likes of Serena Ryder, Blue Rodeo, William Prince, AHI, Rodney Crowell, Keb’ Mo’, and has performed at the Festival d’Été de Quebec, the Mariposa Folk Festival, Ottawa BluesFest, and more. Taylor was extremely honored to perform at not one but two Olympic Games, in Salt Lake City and Vancouver.