A Soft Day's Night

ESP-Disk's Drive to Revive Weird Rock, begun in 2019 with Painted Faces’ Tales from the Skinny Apartment and continued in 2020 with the OPTO S LP Human Indictive/Live, is furthered with the new studio album by this Massachusetts quartet, recorded in mid-2020. Formed in 2016, it has an LP on the great Feeding Tube imprint and a handful of cassettes and CD-Rs, most self-released. Although, yes, there’s a distinct Velvet Underground influence to be heard, there’s an underground/outsider feel thanks to the unique vision of singer/lyricist/guitarist/visual artist Jeffrey Gallagher (“a visionary and experimental musician”—Boston Hassle), who has a plethora of self-released material under a variety of pseudonyms (and ESP has plans to release some more).

The first single is “Vinegar and Salt”: https://youtu.be/UKXYmwkOvSA. 

Credits:

Jeff Gallagher: guitar, vocals

Jonathan Hanson: guitar, keyboards

Shane Bruno: bass

Chris Wojtkowski: drums

Produced by Barny Lanman & Bridge of Flowers

Recorded at Zen Den Studios in Fitchburg, MA

 Track Listing:

A1. Vinegar and Salt

A2. Empty Room

A3. Aloe Vera

A4. Tour Rider

A5. Year Without a Summer

B1. Poetry in Motion

B2. Tambo

B3. Brittle

B4. Mirage

B5. Never

 Press:

“The guitars have a slow building chime-based focus that pairs with the laconic vocals in a deeply classicist way…it’s a very cool sound, somewhat loose at the edges and unspooling as it progresses. Should we expect greater things of this band as they go along? The smart money says yes. Place your early bet today.  — Byron Coley, 2018

 “First off, these folks can play. Although they claim the music is simple, I would contest it is anything but. There is a difference between “simple” and “familiar” when it comes to songwriting, and although I think this band of performers could not go a song without pushing the boundaries of what we can love about rhythm, they still keep it all in check so that it can remain somewhat accessible to a listener. The live show must be amazing, and keep people coming back for more, because you never know what is going to happen. The guitars stay relatively cleaner, which is a fresh of breath air in this world of distortion chugs many band tend to use.” — Boston Hassle