Paul Lewis & Romeo Rage aim high and shoot for the stars with their powerful, propulsive and penetrating album Sky’s Rust — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
The Delaware duo’s debut full-length channels rocking vibrations through a chameleonic David Bowie / Prince-style lens, restlessly blurring the lines between theatrical, rebellious, freaky and provocative. Dark, cinematic and brimming with genuine emotion, Sky’s Rust channels a diverse slate of influences, from Foo Fighters and Arctic Monkeys to Peter Murphy and Type O Negative.
On the eight-song release, prolific singer-songwriter and producer Lewis — also composer of music for feature films such as Days of Power — combines his eclectic rock style with the technical drumming of John Sanders to create somethingfresh and greater than the sum of its parts. This is a band at the top of their game, doing exactly what they want to do creatively, experimenting freely with the cinematic and gothic while leaving caution to the wind.
“Romeo Rage is what happens when two guys boldly blur several genres and marry West Coast riffs with East Coast edge,” says Sanders. “The result is a sort of controlled chaos that makes for a unique audio journey.”
The new album comes on the heels of Romeo Rage’s three-song contribution to the soundtrack for the independent feature film Dark State, released in 2021. The songs were co-produced with Lewis and Emmy-winning sound mixer Robert Venable.
“The pandemic shook the world and affected everything that I do, so out of that came most of these tunes,” says Lewis. “Some of them I had written and hadn’t done anything with until this new idea came. I’ve always wanted to play edgier and darker material yet still having a pop sensibility about the tunes. I found some amazing musicians to play with and now we are ready to bring it.
“Some of the tunes have been based on dreams. Lyrically especially. Some are based on a turning point in my life where I had to decide if I was even going to start a whole new project. I had already written half of the tunes and then while scoring a film I was inspired even more and just kept writing. I’m feeling very satisfied and if success is upon creation … then I’m there.”
Watch videos for Black and Send Letters above, hear more of Sky’s Rust below, and keep up with Paul Lewis & Romeo Rage at their website, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
