Armies is a pop/rock duet and band hailing from Portland, Maine, led by songwriter, producer, guitarist and vocalist Dave Gutter and vocalist/songwriter Anna Lombard. Armies’ debut album was ranked as one of Rolling Stone Magazine’s “Top 15 Great Albums You Didn’t Hear in 2015” last December, just three months following its release. Fusing pop, rock, blues, and electronic music with intricate and spell-binding male/female duet vocals, Armies’ live show is a high energy mix of club beats, poignant songwriting with nuances of the blues.
Gutter’s genre-bending songwriting style has led to collaborations with David Bowie, Gramatik, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Eric Krasno, Aaron Neville, Griz, Carlos Santana, OHX, Soul Rebels, Res, Naughty by Nature, Funkmaster Flex, Imogen Heap, Spose, The Eels and Black Violin. Gutter’s song “Torture” as performed by Gramatik and Eric Krasno was used in the trailer for the award-winning Netflix Original series “Narcos” and in the Summit/ Lionsgate feature “Step it up: All in.”
SOURCE: Official Bio
LINKS:
http://wearearmies.com
https://www.facebook.com/armiesmusic
https://twitter.com/armiesmusic
https://www.instagram.com/wearearmies
https://soundcloud.com/armiesmusic
https://open.spotify.com/artist/6uenGiQw5fVInI2vHSd6cj
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Heart to Heart – Insufferable
Quiet is nice. Quiet is comfortable. But quiet is dangerous, too — because quiet is the perfect disguise for a revolution.
Nick Zoppo knows this. 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.”
Zoppo’s alter ego, the “Outlandish Zicky Dice”, took the independent wrestling scene by storm, landing him bookings all across the world. Inspired by his character, Zoppo returned to Heart to Heart with a renewed passion, and his fellow bandmates — guitarist/vocalists Johnathan Hayes and Alex Lulow, bassist Justin Bratcher, and drummer AJ Wright — were just as excited to get to work.
The result is Heartbreaker, a six-song release that’s as musically aggressive as it is inherently melodic. It’s the kind of stuff that would stop you in your tracks at Warped Tour, or would make you open Shazam on your phone to identify the song if you overheard it coming from someone’s car stereo.
“Heartbreaker is a new, completely different, mature sound for Heart To Heart,” Zoppo says. “This record means the most to me, especially lyrically. I think of real pain in my life that I connect to music, and that’s what I draw on when writing lyrics.”
Look no further than Heartbreaker’s opening track, “Ø Love,” which finds Zoppo keenly observing, “We all learn from loss and pain and suffering.” Or check out “Someone Else,” which includes a potent bit of dialogue from Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. Or just 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.”
It’s clear that Zoppo approaches each song as if it could be his last, using his lyrics as a way to directly speak his mind, no matter who may get caught in the crossfire. His approach may ruffle a few feathers (“I get texted from the subjects of songs sometimes,” he says with a chuckle), but it also allows for deeper bonds to be formed, as you can hear in the emotionally gripping “The (Q)uiet War,” a passionate song about mental health, which includes a real voicemail message from a musician friend of Zoppo’s who was near the point of ending his own life.
“You can just hear the true emotion and true pain in it,” he says of his friend’s confession, assuring that the friend is in a much better headspace now. “It’s a war inside your head daily. Even me — I play this character that’s full of himself in the wrestling ring, but I’m also trying to remember if I took my depression medication this morning. I like being a public figure that can talk about these things openly, and hopefully try to motivate someone else to remind them there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s completely okay to not be okay.”
Zoppo is not only constantly working on himself, he is also helping others — the singer/wrestler is currently working toward his master’s degree in special education, and he makes time in his busy schedule to work in a special ed class as well. All of this goes into making Zoppo a surprisingly vulnerable frontman — but while vulnerability might shine through in the studio, once he gets on stage, all bets are off.
“When I would go on stage, I would be this character that eventually turned into Zicky Dice,” he says. “Angus Young from AC/DC used to say he would black out on stage, and I feel that’s the same for me. I’m all about entertaining the crowd. Yeah, they’re there to listen to music. But this is a chance to give them a performance. I look forward to sharing these songs with the world as an older, more mature me and a more mature band.”
With Heartbreaker, Heart To Heart is ready to reintroduce themselves to the world. They’re older and wiser, sure; they all carry a few more scars, both physical and emotional; but their musicianship is more advanced than it’s ever been, and they’re ready to kick the listener in the face, sonically speaking.
“We really took our time and tried a lot of different things we haven’t done musically before,” Zoppo says. “New vocal techniques, harmonies, guitar overlays… We were in the studio for months, because we knew Heartbreaker had to be something incredible. Everyone here has a lot of shit on the line. We all really want to be our best.”
Quiet has ended. A revolution is about to begin. Heart to Heart is ready for you. Are you ready for them?
LINKS:
https://www.instagram.com/zickydice
https://twitter.com/zickydice
https://facebook.com/zickydice
https://facebook.com/hearttoheartca -
Robert Taira Wilson – Blackbird
Robert Taira Wilson has officially premiered his new video for the track titled ‘Blackbird’ on Jammerzine. If you read our review of the original track from June, you will get a perspective of our take from the music. The video offers a visual construct of what we said. Introverted. Introspective. Reflective. All of that and more with brilliant sketch style animations with geometric shapes representing bondage and cages that fade through the looking glass showing a better world and an alternative that could be. This is magic.
Check out our other features with Robert Taira Wilson HERE.
About Robert Taira Wilson
Robert Taira Wilson is an English singer-songwriter whose music mixes folk with modern alternative songwriting. He is currently based in Tokyo and, in recent years, has released both solo and collaborative records.
About ‘Blackbird’
Due to the pandemic, I’ve taken the time away from performing to write a body of new material. For every time you may have felt disowned or dislocated, removed or redundant. This song delves deep into that moment and cries out for escape and healing. A departure from my usual sound, the song features an arpeggiated electric guitar in place of the accustomed acoustic. Written and recorded entirely from my home studio “Blackbird” will be my first release since 2019’s ‘Shine Shine Child’ EP.
LINKS:
https://www.roberttairawilson.co.uk
https://www.youtube.com/user/ROBERTTAIRAWILSON
https://www.instagram.com/roberttairawilson
https://www.facebook.com/roberttairawilson.music
https://www.twitch.com/roberttairawilson -
Unlocking The Truth – My Chains
By now, the story of teenage metal trio Unlocking The Truth (who walked away from a seven-figure deal with Sony) is well known. After years of media excitement, late-night TV appearances, and breakout sets at Coachella and Bonnaroo, the band’s debut album Chaos was finally released independently last year. The Brooklyn-based band is now back with a new music video for their latest single “My Chains” that premiered exclusively with Loudwire.com. The video (directed by JP Brasca) cuts through much of the hype surrounding the group and shows a different side of the band.
“We wanted the video to show that Unlocking The Truth has more to offer than just a good song,” says guitarist/vocalist Malcolm Brickhouse. “The video and song both push the envelope for ‘the norm’ in metal music. It’s fresh. It’s new. It’s MY CHAINS!”
The track is a soulful metal hybrid, co-produced by Brickhouse (and Kenta Yonesaka, Germano Studio NY), who says “The meaning of ‘My Chains’ will be different for everyone, but there’s a line in the song for everyone. Think about it. We all have chains in life. It could be somebody or something we use as a crutch to help us get through life and loosen those chains.”
“My Chains” is available on Spotify and iTunes.
LINKS:
http://unlockingthetruthband.com
https://www.facebook.com/pg/UTTBand
https://twitter.com/UTTband
https://www.instagram.com/unlockingthetruth