Bandcamp Artist of the Week: News of the Fire

One of the bi-products of starting your own site is the amount of new music that lands in your lap. Every week I end up with 20 or so new albums that I dump into my iPod which are then whittled down to about 3 or 4 that have any real staying power.

I especially enjoy it when I receive an email from a young band just looking for some traction. Most times you see glimpses of what could be but it isn’t a fully formed sound yet, but with every 10th or so email you find an act that is there. They have their sound. They are confident in their approach and have just made an ass kicker of an album/EP. They just do not have the press and backing. These are the artists I love to try to help. These are the artists I want to scream from the rafters about.

On Friday I received an email titled New Burrito Music, from a band called News of the Fire regarding their EP Motions and Hints:

"My name is Dan Fromhart and I'm part of a band called News of the Fire. We're a bunch of college students flung about various schools in the LA area. We write music in dorm rooms with shirts muffling toms, amps doubling as rudimentary chairs, and guitars held close to the body as to avoid knocking over stacks of papers that rise to the ceiling. During the day, we are students, but at night, we are on the hunt for shows and exposure. We are huge fans of your blog and see it as an incredible opportunity to help project us onto the forefront of the music scene. If you would be interested to write about us, we would be ecstatic. If not...well, I'm sure we can still enjoy each other's company."

It was Friday, the weekend was just in grasp, and I was just about to head out the door but something about the tone of the email captivated me and I had to download the album.

I am glad I did because it became my soundtrack for the weekend. The EP was hitting on all cylinders; heavy but not to heavy guitars mixed with melodic lead work, powerhouse drumming, rambling bass that guided the track expertly and a voice filled with depth, darkness and hope. These guys were young, as you can see from their baby faced picture, but they were whole, they had an evolved and natural sound that reverberated in the recesses of my mind conjuring up artists as vast as Jeff Buckley, The Doors, and early Kings of Leon. If you grab this off their bandcamp page you can’t go wrong, and though they allow you to name your own price, throw them a few bones. Remember how shitty dining hall food was when you were in college?