Heaven’s Gate | Heartbreaking Bravery

Tag: Heaven’s Gate

July 3, 2015

White Reaper – Last 4th of July (Music Video)

Another day of great releases gone by, another batch of exciting releases to cover. With yesterday’s coverage going to the Ben Seretan premiere, there’ll be material to have surfaced from both today and yesterday running in this post. For music videos, we were graciously gifted Eternal Summers’ kitchen trip “Comes Alive“, Heaven’s Gate’s oddly eerie “Sally Says“, The Libertines’ weirdly inspired (and psych-tinged) return clip “Gunga Din“, and Big Noble’s characteristically gorgeous “Traveler“. White Reaper‘s “Last 4th of July” wound up getting this post’s focus and will be expanded on shortly.

Heather Woods Brodericks’ Glider and Nap Eyes’ Whine of the Mystic held down the fort for the full streams (and revealed themselves to be two of 2015’s finest low-key releases). The Rubs’ basement pop gem “Until He’s Mine“, Uh Bones’ psych-damaged “Everyday Killer“, Aye Nako’s spiky outsider punk tune “Worms“, Vacation’s continuously shifting “The Heat“, Tedo Stone’s Southern-tinged powerpop number “To The Marshes“, and a pair of tracks from site favorite theweaselmartenfisher (an extraordinary, heartfelt cover of Cyndia Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and another original knockout, “Create Dangerously“) constituted the single stream bracket.

White Reaper’s upcoming White Reaper Does It Again is an unbelievably explosive record (two of the songs the band’s released in the rollout campaign have already been featured on this site) so it sort of makes sense there’s a song on it called “Last 4th of July”. Continuing on with sensible decisions, the band’s decided to release a music video for the 100 second tune just in time for this year’s 4th.

Retro effects provide the clip with a fun opening before it takes an unexpected left turn and devolves into a beautifully-lensed series of shots where the band wreak absolute havoc on the windows and windshields of a variety of scrapyard vehicles. Much like White Reaper Does It Again, the whole affair is a jolt of surging adrenaline that establishes White Reaper as an absolute force. Join the party or get the hell out of the way.

Watch “Last 4th of July” below and pre-order White Reaper Does It Again ahead of its July 17 release date from Polyvinyl here.

1 Comment

June 9, 2015

Sulky Boy – Things Betwixt (Stream)

Over the course of the past week, I’ve been collecting music as it comes while also preparing for a move halfway across the country. A lot of things have caught my attention in that time and tonight I’ll be highlighting three tracks, each coming equipped with a list of 15 highlights that- if time wasn’t an issue- would all have been expanded on a lot further than just a link. Unfortunately, time can be a severe limitation and- all things considered- forces this brief reformatting of the site’s usual design. On the upside, the three songs that do get featured are three of the strongest in recent memory, starting with “Things Betwixt”, an extremely limited lathe cut from Dan Taylor’s Sulky Boy project.

Like seemingly everything else coming out of Art Is Hard these days, “Things Betwixt” is scrappy, winsome, and effortlessly charming. Weathered, familiar, and presented with a vision that feels singular, it’s the kind of song that has the potential to build a career. With Sulky Boy well on its way to achieving a much greater visibility. Rambling along at a mid-tempo pace, it feels almost as if the whole thing is a stream-of-consciousness outpouring that manages to convey the lengths of Taylor’s considerable charisma. Ostensibly a song about loss, it’s grounded in Taylor’s weary vocal delivery, rendering it an unflinching look at what it means to be human. Presented as part of Art Is Hard’s The Hard Cut Record Club series- and complete with an inspired art design- it’s one of 2015’s more stunning niche releases.

Listen to “Things Betwixt” below and keep an eye on Art Is Hard’s store for more releases (the limited run of “Things Betwixt” is already sold out). Beneath the embed, enjoy a list of 15 songs to emerge from the past week and a half that deserve hearing.