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Breakout Band Sleep Theory Release Debut Album 'Afterglow'

Breakout Band Sleep Theory Release Debut Album 'Afterglow'

Scoop19-05-2025
Breakout four-piece Sleep Theory —vocalistCullen Moore, guitaristDaniel Pruitt, bassist Paolo Vergara, and drummer Ben Pruitt— have released theireagerly awaiteddebut album,Afterglow, via Epitaph Records.
The album offers astunning display of diverse rock flavors andwas produced by David Cowell andmixed by Zakk Cervini (Bring Me The Horizon, Bad Omens, Architects).
To celebrate the release, Sleep Theory havealso shared the video for 'Gravity.'
The song, with its pop-inspiredbounce, heady grooves, generously sprinkled synths, and Moore's soulful, arena-sized voice, is about the winners and losers who keep playing the game of love.
"'Gravity' is really just a classic R&B story— it's about that real chemistry you sometimes feel with someone, even when the timing's not perfect," Moore explains. "I wanted it to feel confident, a little flirty, and very 2000s — something that could've played in the background of a scene in a throwback movie."
He yanks the curtain back a little more, saying, "'Gravity'actually came together back in 2021, before we even knew we were going to do a full album.I wasn't thinking in terms of a big project yet — I was just writing whatever felt good at the time.A big inspiration was the song 'No Guidance'by Chris Brown and Drake. It had this smooth, confident energy that really stuck with me. I wanted 'Gravity' to have a similar vibe — something that feels cool and effortless but still has emotion behind it.Even visually, I was thinking of that same kind of late night, moody feel."
In other Sleep Theory news, the album's lead single 'Stuck In My Head,' ascended to the No. 1 spoton the Active Rock radio charts —a first for the band! The single "Static" is currently at No. 19 on the activerock charts, the album's fourthsingle to appear in the Top 20. All told, Sleep Theory have accumulated 350million streams across 10 singles in their brief but blockbuster career thus far.
Sleep Theory combineenergetic hard rock and metalcore, alongside the powerhouse vocalist Cullen Moore. Praised by Jelly Roll and David Draiman, they've toured with Shinedown, Falling In Reverse, and Beartooth. In under two years, they became the fifth most-played artist on Active Rock radio.Afterglowand thePaper HeartsEP merge heavy rock with pop and R&B, producing anthemic bangers and emotional ballads. Saluted byRevolver, Loudwire, and Amazon Music as an Artist to Watch in 2025, they've become one of heavy music's biggest breakouts. WithAfterglow, the quartetprovesready to ascend to the next level. Sleep Theory deliver the dynamic, heavy bounce and massive vocal hooks that the rock world desperately needs. Moore is a powerhouse singer who outmatches nearly all his peers, recalling the most classic and timeless pop, R&B, and rock 'n' roll vocalists of the last several decades. Sleep Theory push themselves creatively at every turn, catapulting the genre to new sonic heights.
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Thrice Announce New Album Horizons/West
Thrice Announce New Album Horizons/West

Scoop

time22-07-2025

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Thrice Announce New Album Horizons/West

Los Angeles, CA – July 22, 2025 – Acclaimed rock innovators, Thrice return with Horizons/West, their highly anticipated new album set for release on October 3, 2025 via Epitaph Records. The announcement arrives alongside the release of the record's blistering lead single, 'Gnash,' available now on all streaming platforms. Pre-sale for the Horizons/West vinyl and exclusive merch is available now at Listen to 'Gnash' and pre-save Horizons/West here. Watch the moody visualizer for 'Gnash' here. Serving as a companion to 2021's Horizons/East, the new full-length album continues the band's bold sonic exploration and philosophical depth, while standing firmly as its own statement. Horizons/West blends cinematic post-rock textures, intricate rhythms, and the raw urgency that defined Thrice's early work, offering an album that's equal parts introspection and confrontation. 'This is the first time we leaned into something that felt like a direct continuation, like a sequel to a previous album,' says frontman Dustin Kensrue. Horizons/West was produced and engineered by the band at New Grass Studios, with mixing and additional production by Scott Evans and mastering by Matthew J. Barnhart, both of whom also worked on Thrice's The Artist in The Ambulance (Revisited), (2023). The release continues the band's long-standing DIY ethos and adventurous spirit. The album also marks a lyrical deep dive into themes of personal identity, societal manipulation, technological anxiety, and spiritual awakening. 'A lot of this record is about parsing reality,' Kensrue explains. ' We're constantly being influenced by algorithms, by fear, by our own social echo chambers. Horizons/West tries to pull the curtain back on some of that. We've always just followed our curiosity, wherever it leads,' Kensrue reflects. 'We want to keep growing, exploring, and making something that feels honest to who we are right now.' About Thrice: Steadfast and straightforward creative conviction has guided Thrice since they emerged in the late '90s with a sound that combined hardcore grit and progressive ambition, establishing themselves as pioneers among their post-hardcore the underground punk scene to major labels and influential indie labels, with a rich catalog of intense, meaningful, and emotionally driven albums, Thrice is a singular entity that gains more significance with each new release among their fans. Dustin Kensrue (vocals/guitar), Teppei Teranishi (guitar), Eddie Breckenridge (bass), and Riley Breckenridge (drums) consistently evolve in sound and their earliest releases to the bold exploration over more than 20 years of material, Thrice built a reputation as a band for musicians and songwriters, and a group with consistent integrity willing to take artistic and commercial risks. Palms (2018), their first album for Epitaph, debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Indie and Hard Rock charts. And they've never lost their connection to their diverse audience, which is best understood beyond the Billboard charts and massive streams, through personal impact and a relationship forged through years. The double decade anniversaries of The Illusion of Safety (2002) and The Artist in the Ambulance (2003) inevitably fed the energy and creative self-assurance that resulted in Horizons/West. Horizons/West, their 2025 full-length studio album, arrives as a companion to 2021's Horizons/East. It continues the themes and sonic ambitions of its predecessor while standing entirely on its own. In 2025, Thrice reaffirms its legacy while continuing to push forward. Horizons/West Tracklisting 1. Blackout 2. Gnash 3. Albatross 4. Undertow 5. Holding On 6. Dusk 7. The Dark Glow 8. Crooked Shadows 9. Distant Suns 10. Vesper Light 11. Unitive/West

Jackson, Mississippi: The pulse of blues, gospel and soul music
Jackson, Mississippi: The pulse of blues, gospel and soul music

NZ Herald

time22-07-2025

  • NZ Herald

Jackson, Mississippi: The pulse of blues, gospel and soul music

I knew he meant it with the best intentions, but I owed it to artists like Moore to learn. S Civil rights history, hardship and resilience in Jackson helped develop the sounds I became enamoured by. Nestled in a heat-sodden corner of Jackson lies another beige building with a small sign revealing the unpretentious site of one of the most influential record labels in American music history. Its website said it made 'black music for black people'. But this didn't mean the artists couldn't be white. 'Malaco has always been, for a long, long time, a very traditional African-American music company,' so began Tommy Couch Jr, president of Malaco Records, as he stood beside a huge black-and-white wall poster of Rob Bowman's book, The Last Soul Company: The Malaco Records Story. 'We judge the music by the consumer, not the colour of the artist that's playing it, because there are a lot of black guitar players that are blues singers that do not sell to an African American consumer,' he explained. 'Just from the business side, we judge by where it's gonna end up ... who's consuming it.' Mural of music legend BB King in Mississippi. Photo / Visit Mississippi At first glance, Couch fit the unassuming Jackson mould, donning a plaid shirt, plain navy trousers and neatly combed hair. Something of a Regular Joe. But when he opened his mouth, he didn't just speak. He bellowed with warmth. And with that endearing Southern drawl, he was drooling swag. The man was magnetic. Couch, who inherited the business in 2013 from his father Tommy Couch Sr - a co-founder - loosely showed us around the legendary spaces steeped in history while guessing what we might value seeing. In truth, we wanted to see it all. And we got to. Those walls were baked with stories and wired with sound. There were frames of the artists who had recorded there scattered all over, including Paul Simon, Jean Knight, King Floyd and ZZ Hill. It wasn't until I was inside the recording studio that the realisation landed - gently, but permanently: Donna Moore was in this room. It was silly - and I'm almost embarrassed to admit it - but I was giddy. I was the schoolgirl with a crush, but instead of with a boy, it was with the mic, the drum kit, the fancy digital audio workstation, and the glass that separated the artist from the producer. 'It was pretty much an international record,' Couch said of Misty Blues. "A really big soul ballad." That ballad became Malaco's first major hit after they took a gamble and spent their last bit of cash to sell it under their label. It sold millions of copies, was nominated for a Grammy and reached the top 10 in the charts in Aotearoa, Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada. The company celebrates the 'biggest gospel catalogue in the world'. Couch explained to me that a lot of the music was created, and about 40% of it was acquired through purchasing other companies along the way, then continuing to work with those artists in that catalogue. Like many other industries, Malaco had to change drastically to keep up with digitisation. For them, it paid off. 'It got good,' Couch said. 'It's easy to reach people.' It wasn't as simple as that, of course. They changed their whole operating model. 'We knew what the bottom was ... so we based our business around that,' Couch said. 'We'd say, if we bring Little Milton in and make a record, we're gonna sell 33,000 records. Now, we may be wrong and sell 100,000. But we'd never sell 30 [thousand].' While the scene isn't what it used to be, its influence on contemporary music and the cultural landscape is visceral. In 2017, Google made a commercial using a sample of the 1980 gospel hit Jesus Can Work It Out. Through placements in movies, films, TV and big-time musicians like Kanye West and Drake are incorporating the sounds from Malaco's collection. 'Which used to hurt our feelings,' Couch admitted, 'But we're very thankful'. Malaco may be the 'last soul company' and it's not going anywhere soon. 'The catalogue has been so well put together, so our everyday business is going to be fine if we never put another record out. But we like music and we're in the music business, so we can pick and choose who we want,' Couch said. 'Nobody in the world has been around as long as we have,' said Couch. 'We're independent and we do it our way. And it works.' 'A lot of other companies look to us to see what we're doing and how we're doing it and really seek our advice ... it's just a lot of pride in the fact that we never should have been able to have made it a year. And we've been here almost 60.' Checklist MISSISSIPPI, USA GETTING THERE Flying with United Airlines from Auckland, there are two stopovers in San Francisco and Houston, before reaching Jackson, Mississippi. Malaco Records is a 30-minute drive northwest of the airport. DETAILS The journalist travelled as a guest of Travel South USA. Varsha Anjali is a journalist in the NZ Herald Lifestyle team. Based in Auckland, she covers travel, culture and more.

DRAIN Share 'Stealing Happiness From Tomorrow'
DRAIN Share 'Stealing Happiness From Tomorrow'

Scoop

time19-07-2025

  • Scoop

DRAIN Share 'Stealing Happiness From Tomorrow'

Santa Cruz hardcore and metal institution Drain are gearing up to release their highly anticipated new album … Is Your Friend and, they return with a new single and video, 'Stealing Happiness From Tomorrow.' The track is a blistering four minutes, blending rapid-fire hardcore with big, groovy metal breakdowns and anthemic, sing-along shouts that demand a live setting. Its accompanying video shows the band on the road, where they spend most of their time, without their founding drummer Tim Flegal. The drummer who started the band 11 years ago has never missed a show but has had to sit the last shows out as he fights cancer at home. The song follows 'Nights Like These' the video for which envisions the band still going at it in the year 2055 (using the band's dads and uncles as older Drain) With their third full-length album and second for Epitaph Records, …Is Your Friend, Drain had two primary goals in mind: to capture their quintessential live essence on recording, and to write new songs that'll make their next shows even crazier. Their previous albums were written before Drain were on the road all year, and they spent the last few hundred nights onstage making note of which songs their fans respond best to. …Is Your Friend is designed to maximize their audience's shit-losing abilities. Its 10-song tracklist includes the heaviest mosh parts, the catchiest choruses, the tastiest thrash riffs, and the most scream-able lyrics Drain have ever written. Producer Jon Markson (The Story So Far, Drug Church, One Step Closer) tracked the whole album live -- 100% real-time drums, no metronome, no programmed bullshit. It sounds the way Drain were always meant to: crisp, serrated, animated. DRAIN (Ciaramitaro, guitarist Cody Chavez, and drummer Tim Flegal) formed back in 2014 and cut their teeth in Santa Cruz's fertile DIY hardcore scene. COVID lockdown couldn't stop their 2020 debut, California Cursed, from making waves, and their 2023 follow-up, LIVING PROOF, hit the hardcore scene like a Cali beach during hurricane season -- a torrential classic. Since then, DRAIN have blazed through hundreds of shows worldwide: headlining festivals, taking their friends and heroes on tour, and even playing arenas with Blink-182. Regardless of whether they're opening for pop-punk jukeboxes like Neck Deep or grabbing the stage-dive torch from Terror, DRAIN's only goal is to make the crowd go buck wild.

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