We like to feel as though we know quite a bit about our friends from Leeds, UK, but the truth is, we had no idea they were releasing their newest track as a bonus to their fans until they announced it this past week. "Champion" is the upbeat fivesome's latest track and may be heard on Your Vegas' Everything Burns Tour which also features bands SHIROCK and The Daylights.
You can listen to Your Vegas' song "Champion" on their MySpace page. If you missed our interview with them last year, you can check it out here. Also, if you missed their debut album, A Town and Two Cities, which reached #6 on our top albums of 2008, head here.
Remaining Tour Dates:
Feb 6th Atlanta, GA
Feb 7th Nashville, TN
Feb 8th Cincinnati, OH
Feb 9th Columbus, OH
Feb 10th Indianapolis, IN
Feb 11th Chicago, IL
Feb 13th Detroit, MI
Feb 14th Cleveland, OH
Feb 15th Pittsburgh, PA
Feb 16th Richmond, VA
Feb 17th TBA
Feb 18th Philadelphia, PA
Feb 19th TBA
Feb 20th Washington DC / Vienna, VA
Feb 21st TBA
Feb 22nd New York, NY
The Dark Romantics aptly titled sophomore album, Heartbreaker, will wrap its wild vines of despair around your heart. An album like this one isn't something we stumble on quite often, but the darkness and underlying sweeps of brittle emotions will capture your attention. On first listen, this was not a typical album to get sucked into. It was much more supple than I anticipated hearing, and my first impressions were to expect something perhaps less melodic than what had actually hit my ears.
The album itself is full of swinging guitar chords and slabs of swooning emotion from lead vocalist, Eric Collins. Vocal comparisons could be made to three of our favorite bands Low vs Diamond's Lucas Field and Your Vegas' Coyle Girielli and Keane's Tom Chaplin, particularly in the two songs below. The Dark Romantics have also been compared to A.C Newman (New Pornographers) and Thom Yorke (Radiohead), but are none in the same with a defining sound just a notch below the prime bands of our day. Their deeper cutting tracks are not for an amateur listener, yet primed for a hearty listen.
MP3: The Dark Romantics - Never Been Loved (buy)
MP3: The Dark Romantics - Gimme A Kiss (buy)
MP3: Low vs Diamond - This Is Your Life (buy)
Remaining Tour Dates
Oct 16 2008 Tin Roof Charleston, South Carolina
Oct 17 2008 New French Bar w/ LOOK MEXICO Asheville, North Carolina
Oct 18 2008 Lunch Box Records w/ LOOK MEXICO Charlotte, North Carolina
Oct 19 2008 Jack Rabbits Jacksonville, Florida
Oct 29 2008 The Vagabond **GEN ART presents REVERB** Miami, Florida
Oct 30 2008 Respectable Street Cafe w/ TV CLUB & MOUSE FIRE West Palm Beach, Florida
Nov 7 2008 Flicker Theatre w/ THE WINTER SOUNDS Athens, Georgia
Nov 8 2008 Soho w/ THE WINTER SOUNDS Columbus, Georgia
Nov 13 2008 ANTI*POP Festival Orlando, Florida
Nov 14 2008 ANTI*POP Festival Orlando, Florida
Nov 15 2008 ANTI*POP Festival Orlando, Florida
Nov 16 2008 ANTI*POP Festival Orlando, Florida
Nov 21 2008 New World Brewery w/ THE WINTER SOUNDS & WIN WIN WINTER Ybor City, Florida
Nov 22 2008 CAMP FIRE USA w/ THE WINTER SOUNDS & WIN WIN WINTER Lakeland, Florida
After serving up some heated kickball late Thursday night, I headed to downtown Philadelphia to catch Your Vegas at The Khyber. Being informed they would be playing second out of three groups, I was shocked to enter the venue with their sound already in the air.
Your Vegas
The UK group turned NYC natives of Your Vegas played beneath dim red lights on the spacious 15x15 foot stage in a room adjacent to the ever-bustling bar of The Khyber.
What is immediately evident when listening to the group is the strong and clean vocals of lead-singer Coyle Girelli. These awe-inspiring vocals intertwined smoothly with the high-stringing guitar of Mat Steel, the synth keyboard work of Mark Heaton, the well-timed rapping on the drums by Mal Taylor and the fingle-fingers of bassist Jon Langford. When these facets were all churning (as they did for the whole set) the place turned electric.
Coyle's vooice bent and reached every corner of the vocal spectrum, which sometimes bordered on the feminine, as Wes Blaylock of Deas Vail's also do . This tiered with catchy lyrics had fans in attendance singing along. Your Vegas closed out their set with "Troubled Times", which rumbled the room and had fans singing "Lydia, Lydia" as they strolled home.
Having interviewed Your Vegas a couple of months ago when their album A Town and Two Cities hit stores, I chatted after the show with Coyle about the group, where they have played and who he is listening to. I strongly suggest heading to see them live as it is only a matter of time before these guys headline as much larger places in every town they go to. Plus, the group was more than happy to sign posters or just talk about anything. Go to this link to see when and where they will be playing next.
Do You See The Dark
I didn't really get to listen to this group since I was talking with the other two groups that had played or were going to play, but I did catch some of the harmony that is Do You See The Dark. The Khyber was a perfect venue for them since the instrumental solos worked nicely with the layout of the bar, since their sound traveled from the show room to the bar without losing much of its luster.
Shannon Cole
Before she went on, Shannon Cole walked through the venue and chatted with a bunch of the other people there. Although I wasn't particularly fond of her pop-punk sound when I listened to it online, the live version, despite being a bit rough around the edges, proved to be the strong point.
April was the best month for music thus far this year, although the months to come hold much in store, particularly with Death Cab For Cutie's Narrow Stairs album hitting stores on May 13th. This month we were able to get lots of sneak peeks at the album, especially with the release of their Daytrotter Sessions, which we were able to hear "Talking Bird" and "Cath...".
My favorite song this month has to be Angel Pier's "Sacrifice", and although this song isn't yet available for download, you can have a listen on their MySpace page. As far as odd songs that I keep coming back to, Helvetia's "Old, New Bicycle" surprised me with the excellent guitar solos matched with the sullen vocals, yet still kept the song so laid back with an eerie summer vibe to it. Delorentos exhibited one of my favorite finds this month with "Do You Realise", which we made a song of the week.
A few albums I can't take out of my CD player/iPod are French Kicks' (check out "Said So What") latest along with Cut Copy's synth techno-rock/pop and Your Vegas' downright collossal release of A Town And Two Cities. A few others to point out in the bunch are Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin's infections, yet mellow "Modern Mystery" and the whimsical group/crowd who make up I'm From Barcelona, with their song "This Boy", which is actually the song in the background on the new Chrysler commercials.
Lastly, another shout to Tokyo Police Club and Annuals, who have really made this month for me along with the Brad Melhdau Trio who's incredible jazz remake of "Wonderwall" will have me looking for more rock-turned-jazz remakes in the coming month. If anyone has any recommendations of other jazz rock songs, please pass them on. Enjoy this month's best-of.
Angel Pier - Sacrifice (buy)
The Whigs - Right Hand On My Heart (buy)
Delorentos - Do You Realise (buy)
Helvetia - Old, New Bicycle (buy)
Auburn Lull - Arc of an Outsider (buy)
The Kooks - Always Where I Need To Be (buy)
Tokyo Police Club - Tessellate (buy)
French Kicks - Said So What (buy)
Unwed Sailor - Little Wars (buy)
South - Better Things (buy)
Coldplay - Violent Hill (buy)
MGMT - Electric Feel (buy)
M83 - Graveyard Girl (buy)
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Modern Mystery (buy)
I'm From Barcelona - This Boy (feat. Loney, Dear) (buy)
Phantom Planet - Leader (buy)
Shout Out Louds - Impossible (Possible Remake by Studio) (buy)
American Princes - Auditorium (buy)
The Details - The Height of Land (buy)
Annuals - Sore (buy)
Cassettes Won't Listen - Freeze & Explode (buy)
Brad Melhdau Trio - Wonderwall (buy)
The Kooks - See The World (live) (buy)
French Kicks - Abandon (buy)
Tokyo Police Club - In A Cave (buy)
Cut Copy - Out There On The Ice (buy)
Cut Copy - Lights And Music (buy)
Your Vegas - Troubled Times (buy)
Your Vegas - Birds of Paradise (buy)
Above: Your Vegas members Coyle Girelli, Mat Steel, Mark Heaton, Jon Langford and Mal Taylor.
Your Vegas, the English rock band from Otley quickly made themselves known throughout The States while on tour with The Bravery over the course of the past few months. With a sound big enough for any arena, song style charismatic as your favorite pop-rock band and more captivating songs than you can shake a stick at, its no wonder why Your Vegas immediately hit the ground running as their first full-length album, A Town and Two Cities made its stunning debut last month.
While the band has been busy on their tour, we were lucky enough to get a few answers from Coyle Girelli (vocals, guitar) about the new album and some lingering thoughts:
Your band name sounds inspiring and open-minded, what made you choose the name ‘Your Vegas’ and what’s the meaning behind it?
Your Vegas was a song that I had before we formed. Its a song about escape, about finding your place in the world where you belong. It’s about hope. When we were looking for a name we kept hitting brick walls. Then someone suggested Your Vegas - it seemed to fit and sum up a recurrent theme in many of the songs - escape, struggling to find a place in the world and eternal hope.
Your first singles came out in 2005 (“Your Vegas”) and 2006 (“Flybuzz”) respectively, what was the biggest factor in getting your first full-length album out the door?I guess my trip, turned move to NY. We released those indie singles but needed the backing to release of first full-length out of the door. We had 70 odd songs and were confident we had a great record in there and we needed it out! We had a deal with Sony in the UK fall through and were at a crossroads. I went over to the US to test the water and see what people were thinking of our music. Pretty quickly we were all in NY doing showcases and soon after were signed to Universal Republic. So I guess that decision to come over for bit was the biggest factor.
You can hit every note in the spectrum, where did you get your pipes?
Thank you very much. I have both Italian and Irish heritage - two nations blessed with a long line of great singers so I guess it’s in the genes. My grandma has always walked around singing Opera. Singing has always been around me. It sort of came natural I guess.
A Town and Two Cities is a crisply produced album, what musical influences pushed the direction of the album one way or another?
We went into the studio with a very fixed vision of what we wanted our album to sound like. We had worked on it for a while. Musical influences from the early 80's from bands such as Echo and The Bunnymen, Big Country, Simple Minds and U2 to the ever-present influence of Springsteen and The Beatles shaped our vision. Our producer David Bendeth (Paramore, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Breaking Benjamin, The Almost, Vertical Horizon) added his thoughts to (our vision) and helped give us a heavy bottom end.
The messages in each of your songs seem to be that of a positive and good-willed nature, what inspired you to write your songs this way?Writing music for me has always been a sort of exorcism. Its a release of what’s going on inside! A lot of the time, I guess, I'm writing to myself. Messages of hope. Songs that lift and make you feel better. I guess the theme of good will and love comes from this. I want our music to have a positive effect on people. To make people think about things and feel good about themselves. I want to make music that matters to people the way it does to me.
The name of your album, A Town and Two Cities must be talking about Leeds/Otley (your hometown) and New York City, where your careers began to bloom. Which of these places had the greatest effect on this album?
Hmmm? Good question. I guess its Otley. It’s where we grew up. It’s the place we fought hard to escape from and I guess it’s the place that stays in our hearts no matter how far from home we are. I have this love/hate relationship with Otley. It trapped me, yet it’s the place that I guess set me free. It’s a source of great contradiction for me.
Your Vegas draws a crowd on their tour with The Bravery
"The Way The War Was Won” has a strong message connected with world peace, is there something specific to you that made you write these lyrics?
Yeah, seeing an unjust and needless war unfold before my eyes - a war that my country is involved in, against my and majority of the populations wishes - a war which has cost so many innocent lives and caused so much pain and destruction - I feel ashamed and so sad at the state of the world right now. Humanity seems to never learn lessons. Its the same crap over and over again - greed = lies = war = destruction. It breaks my heart and is a theme in a few songs and many of our new songs, post A Town And Two Cities.
You have quite a tour happening right now, playing with The Bravery, then with Duran Duran in the coming month, and then finally playing at both Lollapalooza in Chicago and lastly the Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee, what has your best tour experience through The States been thus far?
Yeah it’s amazing. We've just finished with The Bravery. They're an awesome set of guys and a great band. We're gonna miss playing with them, but I’m sure it wont be the last time we do. The whole tour with them was an incredible experience and we got to see so much of America and play to so many amazing crowds. We feel very blessed and can’t wait to keep touring and touring and touring for a long time!
Mp3: Your Vegas - In My Head (buy)
Listen to Your Vegas on iTunes, check them out on their MySpace Page, YouTube, purevolume or check back on their Official Homepage for more details about the band.
Above: Your Vegas - Coyle Girelli, (Vocals) Mat Steel, (Guitar) Mark Heaton, (Keys/Guitar) Jon Langford, (Bass) Mal Taylor, (Drums)
This week has a few subtle surprises in store for you. Your Vegas's debut album A Town and Two Cities is out today for digital release only on iTunes. We mentioned them about a month ago, and still stick by highly recommending them. Other notables are The Black Keys whose suave rock style will surely blow you away, Muse with their live CD and the always pleasant Sun Kil Moon. Don't forget to check out Annuals, whose Wet Zoo EP follows up their much talked about 2006 album Be He Me .
Some bigger names this week are Sevendust, Moby, Hawk Nelson and (if you've been living in a cave) R.E.M. with their first studio release in four years.
Also, be on the lookout for China Mountain, a solo project by Anna-Lynne from Trespassers William to be released sometime this month.
MP3: Moby - I Love To Move In Here
MP3: The Black Keys - Elevator
MP3: Annuals - Sore
MP3: Sun Kil Moon - Moorestown
MP3: Your Vegas - In My Head
1969 - Maya
American Babies - American Babies (MySpace) (buy)
Annuals - Wet Zoo EP (buy)
Anti-Flag - The Bright Lights of America (MySpace) (buy)
Apples In Stereo - Electronic Projects for Musicians (MySpace) (YouTube) (buy)
Bad Brains - Build a Nation (Box Set) (MySpace) (YouTube) (buy)
Black Keys - Attack & Release (MySpace) (YouTube) (buy)
Bombing Neverland - Gone Belltower (ReverbNation)
Bryan Scary and The Shredding Tears - Flight of The Knife (MySpace) (buy)
Colour Revolt - Plunder, Beg and Curse (MySpace) (purevolume) (YouTube) (buy)
Experimental Dental School - Jane Doe Loves Me (MySpace) (YouTube) (buy)
Fall Out Boy - Live Album
For Today - Ekklesia (buy)
Four Year Strong - Rise or Die Trying (vinyl) (MySpace) (buy)
Hawk Nelson - Hawk Nelson Is My Friend (MySpace) (YouTube) (buy)
Josh Gracin - We Weren't Crazy (YouTube) (buy)
Lemuria - Get Better (purevolume) (last.fm) (buy)
Make Believe - Going To The Bone Church (YouTube)
Moby - Last Night (last.fm) (YouTube) (buy)
Muse - Haarp Live CD/DVD (Myspace)
Nadja - Skin Turns To Glass (buy)
No Use for a Name - The Feel Good Record of the Year (purevolume) (YouTube) (buy)
R.E.M. - Accelerate (MySpace) (buy)
Razah - Razah (buy)
Sandrine - Dark Fades Into Light (buy)
Search The City - A Fire So Big the Heavens Can See It (MySpace) (buy)
Sevendust - Chapter VII: Hope & Sorrow (YouTube) (last.fm) (buy)
Sing it Loud - Self-Titled EP (buy)
Sun Kil Moon - April (MySpace) (YouTube) (buy)
This Is Ivy League - This Is Ivy League
U2 - Ballad of Ronnie Drew (import single) (MySpace) (purevolume) (Last.fm)
Unwed Sailor - Little Wars (MySpace)
Upon Beauty Rests - For The Days We Fear The Air We Breathe (MySpace) (purevolume) (buy)
Vermeer - Self Title EP
Yelle - POP-UP (last.fm) (buy)
Your Vegas - A Town and Two Cities (MySpace) (YouTube) (purevolume) (buy)
Shananigans! You can't say there's nothing good to listen to this past month. There was plenty of great music and we'd like to think we found some of the best, especially since we did have an extra day this year. The below list may not be all new music from February, but we've had it on repeat this past month nonetheless. Please, if there's a group you think we may have missed or need to check out, let us know. Here's our 'Best of February' list, enjoy!
Director - Leave It To Me (buy)
El Ten Eleven - Living On Credit Blues (buy)
Bell X1 - Bad Skin Day (buy)
The Reign of Kindo - Do You Realize (cover) (buy)
The Cribs - Don't You Want To Be Relevant? (buy)
Fields - Charming The Flames (buy)
LCD Soundsystem - North American Scum (buy)
Idiot Pilot - Last Chance (buy)
Pela - Song Writes Itself (buy)
The Answering Machine - Lightbulbs (buy)
Chris Walla - Geometry & C (buy)
Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma (buy)
The Twilight Sad - And She Would Darken The Memory (buy)
Electric President - Ten Thousand Lines (buy)
Your Vegas - Troubled Times (buy)
The Bell - On and On (buy)
Fields - If You Fail, We All Fail (buy)
This Will Destroy You - Threads (buy)
Air Traffic - Come On (buy)
Bell X1 - Rocky Took A Lover (acoustic) (buy)
We recently had been urged to check out this band, Your Vegas, whose new EP arrived in December, A Town and Two Cities. We, however missed out on it a few months back, but have one of those feelings that there's something great brewing here. Your Vegas Sounds like an 80s mixture with new age electro-rock.
The lead vocals of Coyle Girelli are truly amazing and can hit every note in the spectrum. The band claims they are from both New York City and Leeds UK, two areas we always find great music emering from - this might explain their EP title. Their three-song EP is available for only .99 cents on iTunes! You can't beat that. Check them out this weekend!
MP3: Your Vegas - In My Head
Your Vegas MySpace Page
