Tag: Haulix Recommends

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New Music Friday: Run Forever & For All Eternity

We know it would take far too long to highlight every client’s new release each week, so we’re going to choose a few select titles each week that we feel everyone should support. These are albums we will be buying ourselves, and we hope at the very least you give them a proper spin before deciding to purchase something else. James may write the column, but everyone at Haulix will have a say in who gets chosen.

Run Forever – Big Vacation EP (7”/Digital/Stream)

Something about the humid heat of mid-July makes me want to pull the blinds, kill the lights, and lose a day or three while one record spins on a loop a few feet away from me (and my cats, who are no doubt lying at my side). That record needs to be something I can get lost in. An all-consuming listening experience that pulls you in slowly and doesn’t allow you to leave until every ounce of emotion has been drained from your tired bones. When I first heard Run Forever’s Big Vacation EP I knew I had found that kind of album. It’s both catch and hypnotic simultaneously, giving you an excuse to either dance or smoke the day away, and leaving it up to you to decide which is the better choice. If you need an escape this month, let Run Forever be your guide to freedom. Get lost in Big Vacation and watch how easily the stresses and worries of reality begin to fall away, leaving you relaxed and free.

For All Eternity – Metanoia (CD/Digital/Stream)

Australia has been a leading force in the development of modern metal music. From Parkway Drive to I Killed The Prom Queen, Feed Her To The Sharks, and now recent Facedown Records signees For All Eternity, the land down under has done more to shape the current state of heavy music than most understand. For All Eternity are still new to the international stage, but their unique approach to metal is sure to quickly win over fans around the globe. I don’t want to undersell the brutality on display, but there is a beautiful orchestration to their label debut, Metanoia, that cannot be praised enough. Amidst a year filled with chug-heavy releases that lack heart and passion, For All Eternity have delivered a crushing, yet gorgeous display of musicianship bursting with emotion at beat. Don’t miss out.

James Shotwell is the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. He is also a professional entertainment critic, covering both film and music, as well as the co-founder of Antique Records. Feel free to tell him you love or hate the article above by connecting with him on Twitter. Bonus points if you introduce yourself by sharing your favorite Simpsons character.

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Monday Motivation: Senses Fail

If you’re anything like me, you probably started the day by recognizing that the start of a new work week had indeed arrived and then immediately began shaking your fists at the sky in anger. Monday is rarely anyone’s favorite day, and from what I have seen firsthand it feels safe to say it’s the one day of the week some people outright hate. I guess to them the arrival of the work week symbolizes the end of their quote/unquote freedom, and as a result they head into the office/factory/restaurant/store with a negative outlook already on their mind. This leads to bad attitudes, which only makes the experience of being at work worse, and for some reason it also seems to make time slow to a crawl. We’re not about that life, and we hope this post can do the same you that the song contained within it did for us.

It was around 4 o’clock in the afternoon last Saturday when I realized that I have spent over a decade of my life listening to Senses Fail. At 27 years of age, that makes my connection to vocalist and lyricist Buddy Nielsen one of the longest-running relationships of my entire life, easily putting every girlfriend I’ve ever had to shame. Heck, outside my parents and one or two select artists there are few, if any, whose nuanced take on the world around them has connected with me on such a deeply personal as his, and even less have been able to sustain that connection for even a year, let alone twelve. 

If you asked me why that is the way my life has played out even two weeks ago I probably couldn’t have told you. I had not yet made the connection myself, so of course there is no way I could have relayed such information to you, but having sat with this notion for a few sleepless nights (due to summer heat, not my connection to Senses Fail) I’ve reached a conclusion. Though the content I relate to has changed from album to album, there is a brash and relentless honesty riddled through each and every Senses Fail record that is not afraid to tear down everything, including the person uttering each line. It’s an all-encompassing sense (no pun intended) of ‘why not tell it like it is, for once’ that keeps me coming back again and again. I never know what Buddy will choose to share, but I know it will be true, and that is more than you can expect from the vast majority of artists working today.

This week, Senses Fail will release Pull The Thorns From Your Heart, their most experimental and thought-provoking release to date. I know I just spent several paragraphs relaying how honest the band has been with every release, but there is something unflinching boldness to this record that strips away every preconceived notion fans have about what Senses Fail are supposed to be and introduces a new, fully-matured band that knows exactly what they want to say and how it needs to be conveyed to listeners in order to make the biggest impact. It’s a cathartic listening experience that leads one to question not only the lies they’ve told others, but the ones they’ve been telling themselves, and how the time spent running from the truth has only been time wasted. You can say it’s good enough, but life isn’t meant to be lived in a way that is just okay. You’re supposed to take chances and, as the band explains on the record, “leap into the great unknown.”

I encourage all of you to make time for _Pull The Thorns From Your Heart _in the days ahead. This summer has been filled with great music, but very few have the potential to make as big of a positive impact as this one, and it just so happens to be one of the most diverse offerings of any group from the alternative world in all of 2015. It will make you feel in ways music rarely does, and that’s exactly what you need to head into the week ahead. You need something that will shake you from the comfort of whatever routine you have allowed yourself to fall into and make you reevaluate the path you have chosen, as well as the people you’ve asked to join you on your journey. 

It’s time to wake up and live the life you were meant to pursue, with love for yourself and others. _Pull The Thorns From Your Heart _will help, but the work is up to you. I believe in you.

James Shotwell is the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. He is also a professional entertainment critic, covering both film and music, as well as the co-founder of Antique Records. Feel free to tell him you love or hate the article above by connecting with him on Twitter. Bonus points if you introduce yourself by sharing your favorite Simpsons character.

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New Music Tuesday: Citizen, Kacey Musgraves, & Leon Bridges

We know it would take far too long to highlight every client’s new release each week, so we’re going to choose a few select titles each week that we feel everyone should support. These are albums we will be buying ourselves, and we hope at the very least you give them a proper spin before deciding to purchase something else. James may write the column, but everyone at Haulix will have a say in who gets chosen.

Citizen – Everybody is Going To Heaven (CD/LP, Digital, Stream)

I didn’t know what to say the first time I heard Michigan natives Citizen perform their unique brand of boundary-pushing alternative rock, but I knew what I heard was something special. Their music feels like the impossible love child that could only result from the combination of Brand New and Nirvana, with just a dash of Thursday sprinkled on top to make you feel something beyond the typical ‘woe is me’ type emotions found in the underground alternative realm. Anyone familiar with the band before now is already familiar with this sound, but on Everybody Is Going To Heaven the band come into their own as only they are able. This is the record their debut, Youth, wanted to be, only better.

Kacey Musgraves – Pageant Material (CD/LP, Digital, Stream)

There is no such thing as country music anymore, or at least not in the classic sense. If people perform music that sounds like it could have been crafted by George Jones or Merle Haggard they’re labeled ‘traditional,’ while those who blend pop sensibilities with country structures are considered mainstream and/or crossover talents. Kacey Musgraves falls into the latter of those two descriptions, but there is no denying the influence of classic country hits on her latest album. Pageant Material plays like a collection of perfectly sequenced radio-ready singles, many of which have lyrics that feel written while Musgrave’s tongue was planted firmly in her cheek. It’s cute, but not cutesy. Fun, but not necessarily funny. It’s the future of modern country as far as I’m concerned, and it’s quite possible the catchiest album you will hear this summer. Don’t miss out.

Leon Bridges – Coming Home (CD/LP, Digital, Stream)

I won’t even beat around the bush on this one. There are some amongst the Haulix staff who believe Leon Bridges is destined to be the biggest start in the music business within the next five years, and they point to his newly released debut album as proof of his potential for global domination. It’s hard to describe what you’ll find on Coming Home without referencing the golden days of Motown and soul music, as the heavy influence from talents like Sam Cooke is oozing from every note and lyric on the entire record. If you close your eyes while the record plays you can actually picture the hazy, smoke-filled speakeasy where music like that created by Bridges was first rising to popularity over half a century ago. You see the men and women, all dressed to the nines, dancing as if they’re the only people in the world while alcohol splashes to the floor as they attempt to hold glasses and swing around a crowded room at the same time. You see and feel it all as if you were actually there, and then you open your eyes to realize everything you just experienced was caused by a twenty-something Texas native with a world of promise ahead of him. That is the power possessed by Coming Home, and I cannot recommend enough that you allow it to change your life as soon as time allows.

James Shotwell is the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. He is also a professional entertainment critic, covering both film and music, as well as the co-founder of Antique Records. Feel free to tell him you love or hate the article above by connecting with him on Twitter. Bonus points if you introduce yourself by sharing your favorite Simpsons character.

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New Music Tuesday: High On Fire & The Ongoing Concept

Now that the Haulix blog has reached two years of existence we at HQ felt the time had come to add a few fresh ideas to the blog. We love helping writers, artists, and aspiring professionals, but we also love to talk about the amazing clients we work with and the incredible releases they put out week after week. Our Music Monday series has given us a chance to experiment with discussing the music we love to play around the office, and now we’re taking those efforts one step further with New Music Tuesday (soon to be New Music Friday). We know it would take far too long to highlight every client’s new release each week, so we’re going to choose a few select titles each week that we feel everyone should support. These are albums we will be buying ourselves, and we hope at the very least you give them a proper spin before deciding to purchase something else. James may write the column, but everyone at Haulix will have a say in who gets chosen.

High On Fire – Luminiferous (CD/LP, Digital, Stream)

With six solid or even great albums already under their belt, High On Fire have nothing left to prove with their new record, Luminiferous. Still, the California natives do their best to raise the bar for all modern heavy metal bands around the world with this nine-track opus. We have probably spent a month spinning the album on a near daily basis, and there are still times where we have to push back from our monitors, look to the stereo in disbelief, and quietly utter words like “wow” or “holy shit” while certain tracks play. “Carcosa,” for example, sounds like the soundtrack to a road trip through the same barren, war torn futuristic land where the latest Mad Max film took place. It pummels you into a state of metal-induced awe, and that’s before you realize it’s only the second track on the album. There’s nearly another hour to go, and it only gets better from there.

The Ongoing Concept – Handmade (CD, Digital, Stream)

If you listen to our podcast, Inside Music, then you already know that The Ongoing Concept went above and beyond the call of DIY rock when they decided to begin work on their new album Handmade. The band literally built their instruments from scratch, and by scratch I mean a tree they themselves cut down. They built their instruments, wrote an incredible follow-up to their critically-acclaimed debut, and then began making videos on their own to promote the record. One might think these added responsibilities distracted the group from focusing on the quality of their material, but that could not be further from the truth. Handmade swings from anthemic rock tracks, to emotionally-devastating moments of alternative beauty, and back again with seamless perfection. I have no idea why Saloon did not put them on everyone’s radar, but it seems hard to believe anyone will be able to ignore the awesome power of this record. Do not sleep on it.

James Shotwell is the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. He is also a professional entertainment critic, covering both film and music, as well as the co-founder of Antique Records. Feel free to tell him you love or hate the article above by connecting with him onTwitter. Bonus points if you introduce yourself by sharing your favorite Simpsons character.

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