And now here's something that has straight-up blown me away! From the moment I heard that Kevin McGovern (The Prostitutes) & Hillary Burton (honeychain, The Pandoras) had started a band together, I was building crazy expectations in my head. These are two of my favorite musicians of the present-day. I was going to be disappointed if they didn't make something special together. Well their debut EP released yesterday, and it exceeds my expectations by leaps and bounds. Simply titled EP #1, this six-song digital release manages to combine almost all of the musical influences that shaped these two artists as they were growing up in the '70s and '80s. I might generally categorize this band as experimental punk/new wave, but I can't really put a hard label on what The Trouble Seekers are doing. These songs are informed by everything from glam rock to power pop to new wave to post-punk to modern rock to synth-pop. This is powerful and genuinely original music that doesn't sound like anything else out there. All it once, it's dark, melodic, hard-hitting, hooky, retro, and futuristic. It brings an overall energy and a "window into a twisted mind" lyrical sensibility that are quite similar to The Prostitutes. But unlike The Prostitutes, The Trouble Seekers limit themselves to no specific style or genre. If I could create my own soundtrack to a film adaptation of a Bret Easton Ellis novel, The Trouble Seekers would be on it! Not only do Kevin and Hillary sound amazing singing together, but they're also perfectly in synch in a creative sense. Seriously: what other duo on earth is citing The Waitresses and Suburban Lawns as primary influences? Pals of mine with exquisite taste (such as Ralph Rivera and my podcast partner Jay Castro) are losing their shit over this release -- and with good reason! And these guys have been huge Kevin McGovern fans for just as long as I have. So when they say EP #1 is great, you better best believe it's great! EP #1 is now available from The Trouble Seekers' Bandcamp and the Rock N Roll Manifesto Bandcamp. If you dig what you hear, you'll be happy to discover that EP #2 is already in the works. This band is currently on the lookout for like-minded record labels. If that's you, be sure to get in touch!
3 comments:
Hi there!
Just thought I'd let you know you have great taste in music writing this blog post regarding the Troubleseekers.
I'm an Australian Alternative/Indie diehard for the past 35 years.
A few years back I randomly one day found some music by honeychain (Hillary) on youtube while searching for something else and fell in love with the music.
Since that time I've delved into all her other musical projects.
When Trouble Seekers became a thing i was also excited! About a month ago I decided to make a youtube channel dedicated to Alternative/Indie music from mostly australia but also awesome american artists such as honeychain and the troubleseekers. I had already directly gotten permission from Hillary to put everything honeychain on my channel and asked her if I could put the newly released full Troubleseekers CD on it also. She said she would ask Kevin and get back to me. Being the awesome people they are the answer was a very fast absolutely. Only today they actually plugged my channel on their facebook page (Im guessing they like what I have done with it). So anybody wanting to get the full taste of their newly released full CD should go to the troubleseekers facebook page and they will see the link posted to my youtube channel where everything Hillary including the troubleseekers alongside much other great content exists :) Thanks for having great music taste.
https://www.youtube.com/@Flatline005/featured
Thanks for the link to my channel mate. Its only a month old but hopefully I will be contiunally adding to it (when I get the time). All sorts of genres on it and eventually it should grow given time and give many alt/indie diehards the chance to not only find music they love but hopefully find other content on the channel they never knew about, check it out and maybe even really like it. Thank you!
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