photo by Elizabeth Gomez
As WALKING BOMBS prepares to release Spiritual Dreams Above Empty Promises in early April, today, Treble is hosting a premiere of the album’s second single, “Reach For The Light.”
WALKING BOMBS is the alternative/cross-genre act created by Morgan Y. Evans, who on “Reach For The Light” handles lead vocals and bass, and is joined by producer Ash Umhey on guitar, Taraka Larson on vocals and organ, and Justin Zipperle on drums.
“My song ‘Reach For The Light’ is kind of like Judas Priest’s epic ‘Run Of The Mill,’ a warning to not settle for mediocrity,” relays Evans. “While it can be hard being trapped in the mechanics of society, we have to try and push back and follow the colorful whispers of creativity inside us. I surrounded myself with others who I know live by a similar code.”
“It felt positive and nourishing to work on ‘Reach For The Light,’” adds Larson. “Morgan’s songwriting is always refreshingly chameleon and hard to pin down. Very genuine, no ego, and lots of room to play around and get weird. Singing on it felt like tapping into a forgotten high school part of myself that was too young for Woodstock ‘99 but not too old to guttural scream into a pitch shifter and channel my inner Korn.”
Treble writes, “It’s a tense, post-punk dirge with an ominous tone, yet it takes a number of unpredictable directions from there, incorporating elements of progressive rock, disco, funk and anthemic punk rock. It courts accessibility and evades easy classification all at once.”
Stream WALKING BOMBS’ “Reach For The Light” first now through Treble at THIS LOCATION.
Spiritual Dreams Above Empty Promises will be released digitally on April 7th. Find preorders where “Adulation” is streaming at Bandcamp HERE.
Watch for additional audio previews, official videos, and more from the record to post over the weeks ahead.
The first of several new WALKING BOMBS records to be released in 2023, Spiritual Dreams Above Empty Promises is an album about trying not to lose hope and to remain centered despite the world’s sorrows and perils. It was written following the passing of Evans’ mother and deals with topics ranging from mortality, spirituality, individuality, gun violence, love, cynicism, freedom of choice, spectator apathy during conflict or bullying, overcoming doubt, and even being startled awake by technology. It is for people trying to remember that cynicism is not as powerful as our deeper hopes, dreams, and empathy.
Spiritual Dreams Above Empty Promises was recorded before Evans’ recent move to Southern California. The record, along with a corresponding sister album, was created in Rhinebeck, New York during the majority of 2022 at engineer and multi-instrumentalist Ash Umhey’s forested studio Orange Sound, engineered, recorded, and mixed by Umhey. It’s a reconnecting of sorts between old friends after years of growing up and participating in the late-1990s/early-2000s fertile Hudson Valley alternative music scene together.
Evans played more instruments than ever, with a large contribution of material from Umhey, drummer Justin Zipperle (Shadow Witch), Elizabeth Gomez Dapena (Globelamp, ex-Foxygen), and cameos from many other friends, including members/alumni of The Chrome Cranks, The Stabbing Jabs, The Alchemy Unit, Prince Rama, The Natural Lines, Matt Pond PA, Meowtain, Gridfailure, Talon, 5rvln5, Kore Rozzik Band, and more, largely recorded at the collaborators’ respective home studios. Septa’s Eugene Tymchyk even sent a spoken word contribution from amidst war-torn Ukraine. The symbolic cover art was created by NYC visual designer Julia Popescu.
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