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Interview: Twin Shadow

Twin Shadow
Adam Grundy

Recently I was able to schedule a quick phone call with an artist named Twin Shadow before he played a concert at Washington, D.C.’s Lincoln Theatre opening for Neon Trees, in support of his upcoming record called Cadet, that will be released everywhere on November 20th via Dom Recs. In this interview, I asked this talented artist about key tracks from his seventh studio album, plus where he finds most of his inspiration for his art. If you’re enjoying the interview, please consider pre-ordering Cadet here.

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My Life In 35 Songs, Track 33: “Friends” by Matchbox Twenty

My Life in 35 Songs
Craig Manning

All my friends, all my friends are here

“All my friends are here.”

Those were the words pumping out of my AirPods as I took off from the start line of my second-ever marathon.

Wind back the clock a decade ago and show me the words I just wrote, and I would not believe they were genuine. Despite being a long-time distance runner, the idea of facing down the grueling task of running 26.2 miles without stopping didn’t just sound unpleasant – it sounded stupid! But the pandemic reoriented a lot of things for me, one of which was my dedication to distance running. And so, on May 27, 2023, I laced up my racing shoes and gave the marathon distance my second try, despite some excruciating memories that were still fresh in my brain from having run the same distance on the same course just one year earlier.

The running community has mixed feelings about racing with music, especially marathons. There’s this belief, in some circles, that music is a crutch, or even a distraction. Having tried racing a marathon since that second one without headphones in my ears, I can definitely understand the appeal of leaving yourself open to hear the world around you – conversation with other runners, cheers from the crowd, snippets of whatever songs spectators happen to have blaring out of their Bluetooth speakers as you run by – not to mention the sharp focus you can lock into when there’s nothing in your head but the miles. For my first five marathons, though, I did run with music, and during that second one, it helped carry me off to a level of serenity I had never achieved before and have never returned to since.

A lot of that, I think, had to do with the song I chose to kick off marathon attempt number 2.

The day before that race, Matchbox Twenty released Where the Light Goes, their fifth album as a band and their first one since 2012. Matchbox Twenty had been one of my favorite bands in the world growing up. Starting with their hit-filled debut album, Yourself or Someone Like You from 1996, this band and their angsty, melodic songs were a platonic ideal for me of what music could be. I still can’t hear tracks like “Real World,” “3AM,” or “Push” without flashing back to car rides to school when I was in first grade, my brother’s copy of the Matchbox Twenty debut spinning in the CD player. Later, as I started governing my own music listening, 2000’s Mad Season and 2002’s More Than You Think You Are were some of the first albums I truly fell in love with. The former was, for a time, my very favorite album ever.

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Review: Susong – matae

Adam Grundy

Coming off of their critically acclaimed last record of We Are In This Together, Susong have returned with a vibrant new EP, called matae, which means “to give up”. In contrast to their opening statement of coming together, Michael and Matt Susong explore the depths of the concept of surrendering, while still building a community of getting artists to collaborate together. Pablo Vega (The Workshop) engineered and mixed the new EP, while Thomas Gleaner designed the artwork. On this 4-song EP, Susong not only expanded upon the feelings of letting go but they also created a world filled with hope and wonder.

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My Life In 35 Songs, Track 32: “evermore” by Taylor Swift

My Life in 35 Songs
Craig Manning

Hey December, guess I’m feeling unmoored; can’t remember what I used to fight for

In competitive running, they call it hitting the wall: the moment near the end of a race, usually a long, arduous one, where all the fight goes out of you. Your legs feel like lead, your heart is hammering on overdrive, your lungs are screaming at you to stop, and your mind is sounding every alarm bell it knows how to hit, all in a desperate attempt to override any motivation, goals, or positive self-talk you have left. Suddenly, everything inside of you is screaming the same word at maximum volume: quit, quit, QUIT.

When Taylor Swift released evermore, her second surprise album of 2020, on Friday the 13th of that December, I felt like a man who had hit the wall – not in my ability to run a race, but in my ability to weather a particularly fraught chapter in human history. When the sun rose that morning, it marked nine months to the day since the year’s other Friday the 13th – the March day when the world had turned upside down in the face of the incoming COVID-19 pandemic. And, for my part, I wasn’t sure if I could take any more months.

Writing about evermore on my favorite albums of 2020 list (it came in at number 3), I wrote that it “dropped on a chilly December Friday that just so happened to be the end of one of the worst weeks of my life.” At the time, I did not elaborate. I felt like everyone’s lives were in disarray, and I thought the sentiment would be more relatable if I didn’t tell my full story of why Taylor Swift’s saddest album came to mean so much to me as 2020 drew to its (merciful) conclusion. After all, who couldn’t relate to feeling down about a Christmas season where the very things that make the holidays special – namely, the warmth of togetherness with family and friends – were going to be all but impossible?

Five years later, I’m ready to share what happened that week, and that year, and how it tore my family apart, changed my entire life, and reframed my whole damn worldview. And I’m ready to tell that story because every time I listen to evermore, particularly the beautifully, exhaustedly sad title track, I can’t help but flash back to where I was the first time I heard it.

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Review: Tired Radio – Hope In The Haze

Tired Radio - Hope In The Haze
Adam Grundy

Originally started as a solo project by guitarist/vocalist Anthony Truzzolino, Tired Radio has returned with Hope in the Haze, an album that finds Truzzolino navigating through the darkness to find a way out. He shared, “We’re about to release this new record that was written at the darkest point of my existence, and I’m nervous for people to hear because it’s all the dark parts of Tired Radio and none of the levity. Very heavy musically and lyrically.” The raspy voice of Truzzolino works well to match the pain that he feels on key songs like “D.R.E.A.M. (Depression Ruins Everything Around Me)”, as Tired Radio finds ways to accelerate their development as a full-fledged band. Produced and engineered by Gary Cioni (Hot Mulligan) with some additional production contributed by Matt Weber (Sweet Pill), Hope in the Haze paints a picture of a person at rock bottom, yet willing to claw their way back to the top. I promise it’s worth the journey, and it’s easy to root for Tired Radio’s breakthrough.

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Review: Taylor Acorn – Poster Child

Taylor Acorn - Poster Child
Adam Grundy

There’s something pretty magical about Taylor Acorn. Could it be her knack for writing big pop-punk hooks that drew me into her music in the first place? Perhaps. Maybe it’s her ability to connect with relatable themes such as growing up, nostalgia, and fractured relationships that makes her musical case that much more compelling. Taylor Acorn has everything you’d want in a rising songwriter/performer, and she puts it all on full display on her sophomore record called Poster Child. “This record feels very personal but it feels nostalgic at the same time,” Acorn shares about the lyrical theme of Poster Child. “I feel like some songs are kind of on the angry side and are very vulnerable, but there’s also a lot of songs that made me feel really nostalgic for my childhood where you could go to the Warped Tour as a 15-year-old and there’s no worries about that.” By connecting to her past, while still moving her songwriting forward in exciting new directions, Acorn has all the makings of a star burning its brightest at the right moment in time.

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Interview: Ronnie Winter and K. of The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
Adam Grundy

Recently I was able to schedule a Zoom call with Ronnie Winter and K. of emo rock band, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, to discuss their latest record called X’s For Eyes. The band’s sixth album to date features key cameos on songs like “Always the King” (ft. Kellen Quinn) and “Worth It” (ft. Craig Mabbitt) and an urgency towards the political climate today. If you’re enjoying the interview, please consider streaming X’s For Eyes here.

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Interview: Taylor Acorn

Taylor Acorn
Adam Grundy

A couple of weeks ago, I scheduled a Zoom call with Taylor Acorn to discuss everything that went into her excellent sophomore LP, Poster Child, that is out everywhere you stream your music today. In this interview, I asked Taylor about key songs from Poster Child, the inspiration behind some of these songs, and what keeps her motivated in her musical career. Taylor Acorn will be supporting Poster Child with a headlining tour, and tickets are on sale here.

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My Life In 35 Songs, Track 31: “Passing Afternoon” by Iron & Wine

My Life in 35 Songs
Craig Manning

There are things that drift away, like our endless numbered days

“What song would you want to have played at your own funeral?”

Back in 2011, a friend and I decided to work through a 30-day song challenge on Facebook together, each of us posting one song per day in response to the same prompts. I have to chuckle in retrospect, realizing that the challenge bore more than a little resemblance to this series that I have spent the past seven months making my raison d’etre. That exercise was colder and more simplistic in its approach, though. Most days were less about deep emotional exorcism and more about the most rudimentary questions you could ask about someone’s music taste. “A song that reminds you of someone” was one prompt. “A song that you listen to when you’re sad” was another. But the overall idea of the project – essentially, selecting songs that for one reason or another were part of your life soundtrack – was the same as the driving force behind “My Life In 35 Songs.” And it stands to reason, when you’re making a soundtrack for your life, that you might flash-forward and try to imagine the song that would roll over your end credits, whenever they happen to arrive.

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Review: Yungblud – Idols

Yungblud - Idols
Adam Grundy

While I have been aware of the artist known as Yungblud for awhile, I honestly never took the time to dive deeper into his discography until now. What I found, when I dove into his latest work, is an artist willing to take big risks in favor of achieving the ultimate reward. Yungblud self-described his fourth studio album of Idols as “a project with no limitations.” It’s easy to see where this pays off on this LP that is brimming with rockstar swagger and great songwriting. Produced alongside longtime Yungblud collaborator/writer, Matt Schwartz, and coming off marquee moments in his career such as an Ozzy Osbourne tribute and a newly announced EP with members of Aerosmith, Idols proves that this young artist has truly arrived and is ready for his moment.

The ambitious record opens with a sprawling nine-minute single of “Hello Heaven, Hello” that takes the listener on a picturesque journey through rock n’ roll lore, and sets the tone for the rest of the great material that follows. The opening lyrics of, “Hello, are you out there? / Are you trying? Are you patient? / Are you blind? / Are you with me? Against me? / Don’t know me at all,” finds Yungblud asking his audience if they’re ready to take this journey with him that plays out like a love letter to classic rock records such as Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Comparisons aside, the opus of an opening statement comes across really well, and it’s a brash way of starting a record that doesn’t conform to industry norms or “rules.”

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Review: All Time Low – Everyone’s Talking!

Adam Grundy

Many people don’t know how just how close All Time Low were from walking away from the music scene. After a dark cloud surrounded the band shortly after the release of Wake Up, Sunshine regarding allegations of misconduct, there was a bit of uncertainty of how or if All Time Low could move forward. After the allegations were deemed to be fabricated, the band decided to move forward with the release of their ninth studio album, Tell Me I’m Alive and a re-recording of their earlier material called Forever Sessions Volume 1 in hopes of rekindling their love for making music together. In an interview with Rolling Stone, the band shared that this period, “…was at a time when I think we weren’t sure if we wanted to make another album. I think maybe you do this long enough and you’re like, ‘Maybe we’ve told the story. Maybe we’ve said all that needed to be said, and maybe there’s not much left for us to say.’ But we’ve had this newfound sense of belonging to the band and this love for it that was rekindled, and we said, ‘I think there’s another one in the tank.’ It’s a good thing that All Time Low decided to regroup, as Everyone’s Talking! ends up being some of the band’s best material to date.

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Review: Heartwork – Three Alley Cats and The Impossible Sky

Heartwork - Three Alley Cats and The Impossible Sky
Adam Grundy

Goodbyes are always hard. Whether it’s breaking up with someone who you once thought was “the one”, or just saying goodbye to a friend you know you won’t see for quite some time, that feeling of the unknown of what comes next can be crippling. Heartwork have released their final album today called Three Alley Cats & The Impossible Sky that marks a proper send-off for the genre-blurring project of Dan O’Dell. O’Dell shared, “The main thing was to say everything I needed. Heartwork has been a huge part of my life, but it’s time to put it to bed and move on—after a well-earned break.” Three Alley Cats & The Impossible Sky marks an important last step in Heartwork’s artistic growth, and he says goodbye with grace on a record filled with plenty of twists and turns, and nods to the height of our scene during the early 00’s.

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My Life In 35 Songs, Track 30: “The Days” by Hailey Whitters

My Life in 35 Songs
Craig Manning

Instead of counting up the days, I just want to make ‘em count

In books and movies, it’s easy to spot the foreshadowing – the little details in the narrative that hint at something bad coming around the corner. In real life, you often only spot those warning signs in retrospect, when you’re looking back after some catastrophe transpires and wondering whether you could have known what was coming. Such is the case when I look back on the music that was dominating my life in 2019, right before the world went into a tailspin. And it is especially true about “The Days,” an achingly wistful summer song by country singer-songwriter Hailey Whitters, about making every good moment count lest they run dry a whole lot sooner than you expect.

In the moment, the good times seemed to be in endless supply in 2019, at least in my life. By the time that summer rolled around, I felt like I’d reached a state of total contentment. I was 28 years old and things were finally falling into place with my career. As a runner, I was getting back into racing after having not run competitively since high school, and my training had me feeling like I was in the best shape of my life. Most importantly, by moving back to our hometown, my wife and I had reignited our social life, which had mostly fallen by the wayside since our college years. We reconnected with old friends, made new ones, and spent a lot of time with family that we’d seen too little of in our years away. Everything felt just about perfect.

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Interview: Alex DeLeon and Alex Marshall of The Cab

The Cab
Adam Grundy

This past week I was able to schedule a Zoom call with Alex DeLeon and Alex Marshall of The Cab to discuss what went into their thrilling new EP called Road To Reign: A Prelude, which is their first taste of new music in over ten years. I asked the two band members about what brought them back to playing music together again, their memories surrounding their previous albums of Whisper War and Symphony Soldier, and their upcoming tour dates with All Time Low. You can stream Road To Reign: A Prelude here.

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Review: Wolves At Bay – Dissolve

Wolves At Bay - Dissolve
Adam Grundy

The first new taste of music in more than ten years from Connecticut post-hardcore band, Wolves At Bay, showcases the band’s sense of urgency in re-capturing the magic from their earlier material. Dissolve is an eight-song album that adds in some textural and electronica sounds to round out the band’s attack and approach to their songwriting. Wolves at Bay shared: “This chapter marks a true rebirth. The connection between us has only grown stronger with time, and that bond is felt in every chord and lyric. Dissolve isn’t just about returning—it’s about starting again with purpose.” By putting a strong step forward in their “rebirth”, Wolves at Bay waste little time in returning to the rock scene at full speed ahead.

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