Kirin J Callinan mans up, The Mowgli’s waste your time, Night Flight Orchestra hit the ice, Heart to Heart are insufferable and more in today’s Roundup. Meet the new year, same as the old year.
1 | Kirin J Callinan | The Homosexual
THE PRESS RELEASE: “To start the new decade just as he ended the last, Kirin J Callinan’s unique, singular talent comes to the fore again via the grand and sumptuous music video for his strangely autobiographical cover version of the underground Momus classic The Homosexual, lifted from his third studio album, Return To Center, out now. Directed by Michael Hili and conceptualized by Kirin, the video dropped as the clock struck midnight on NYE, making it the first video released in the world this decade. The crushing hand of time will decide if it remains the greatest!”
2 | The Mowgli’s | Wasting Time
THE PRESS RELEASE: “All of life is a journey and the best journeys are those taken with friends. For the five members of The Mowgli’s, that road has seen their friendship tested and rebuilt numerous times. From their earliest Venice, California days as a 10+ revolving cast of characters to their current line-up, the core members have evolved from playing midnight warehouse parties to the stages of the largest festivals. Entitled Wasting Time, their new song details the struggle to find meaning in life. Joshua Hogan confides “We all want to do something meaningful, but we don’t always figure out how. This song tells the story of being lost in a repeating loop of every day routine and the fight to keep moving forward.”
3 | Night Flight Orchestra | Divinyls
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Swedish classic rock/AOR supergroup The Night Flight Orchestra are set to take off with the release of their intergalactic new album Aeromantic on Feb. 28. “More drama” is the name of the game – and the band straight delivers class in the form of the official music video for the first single Divinyls, directed by René U Valdes of Bravo Bravo Films. Says the band: “Divinyls is about doing the impossible and pushing your inner dreams to the forefront of your psyche and being in total control of your own future. The video shows two young figure skaters, battling pressure from their demanding coaches, but biting the bullet while they pursue their dreams. You could say the story has hints of the Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan drama, with the exception that these two young aspiring ladies, become friends in the end.”
4 | Heart to Heart | Insufferable
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Nick Zoppo is the frontman of Heart to Heart, an energetic California rock quintet that formed a decade ago and has toured North America countless times. Even though the band cultivated a dedicated following and released two stellar full-lengths, Heart to Heart slowly receded from the music scene, laying mostly dormant the past few years. What made Zoppo put his passion on hold? His other passion: professional wrestling. “In 2015, I moved to Chicago to train with WWE Superstar Seth Rollins,” Zoppo explains, “and three months turned into three-and-a-half years. In that time period, we were still playing a few shows and were still sending music ideas back and forth, it was just a little more tough with me being in the Midwest. I inevitably had to move back to California, and once I came back, we started rocking and rolling again.” The result is Heartbreaker, a six-song release that’s as musically aggressive as it is inherently melodic. Press “play” on standout track Insufferable, which sounds like the dissolving of a relationship in real time — and according to Zoppo, it was. “It was literally what we were going through at the time,” he says. “I am telling the story as it happens — we were breaking up while I was in the studio. I’m speaking my mind and not holding anything back.”
5 | Taraban | Liberty Fraternity Eternity
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Polish psychedelic rockers Taraban have recently shared the live footage for the song Liberty Fraternity Eternity, taken off their exhilarating debut album How The East Was Lost.The Krakow-based outfit formed in 2013 and previously released two EPs as a garage rock foursome. Debut LP How The East Was Lost is a 7-track journey into the true heart of Eastern Europe, its state of mind, the epic struggles it induces, as well as the romanticism of being born to lose. How The East Was Lost was recorded at Monochrom Studio by Satanic Audio’s Haldor Grunberg.”
6 | Amaranthe | 82nd All The Way
THE PRESS RELEASE: “2020 promises to be the year of modern metal sextet Amaranthe. To celebrate, the band has released a cover version of 82nd All The Way, giving the original version (that can be found on Sabaton’s current hit album The Great War), a new twist with their triple vocal approach. Guitarist Olof Mörck states, “People who are familiar with Amaranthe know that we do not frequently do covers, but there was something quite irresistible about interpreting Sabaton’s 82nd All The Way! While being thematically different from most of our songs, musically it made perfect sense, and it was a joy to pick the song apart and put it back together to something classically Amaranthe sounding! So, this is our small tribute to the mighty Swedish war machine that is Sabaton; 82nd All The Way!”
7 | Pologize | This Party Sucks
THE PRESS RELEASE: “It has a holiday vibe to it, right?” Pologize asks about his latest single, This Party Sucks. A bumping, indietronica track, This Party Sucks, the third release from the masked musician, describes a fast ride past the end of the world, into the singularity. The only part that could be mistaken for a holiday vibe is a brostep break (“It’s ironic, I swear!” Pologize says, too earnestly). There’s nary a jingle bell to be heard. Instead, we know where This Party Sucks takes us: a rave/50s-beach-party/festival celebrating wanton ignorance as society gleefully speeds toward a preventable end, putting all its money on some form of an afterlife. So maybe it has a holiday vibe after all.”
