In Defense of Rival Sons: A blog about the latest album from Austin, Texas’s Rival Sons.

In Defense of Rival Sons: A blog about the latest album from Austin, Texas’s Rival Sons.

The latest album from Austin, Texas’s Rival Sons will be released this week on Merge Records. The new album, called Rock & Roll Is Dead, is their third full-length release and follows 2009’s self-titled debut and 2011’s Head Down. This new record features a dozen songs and includes two bonus tracks (one of which is an outtake and one that was recorded live).

Rival Sons is an experimental electronic band founded in 2006 by keyboardist/guitarist/vocalist Jeremy Stephens and drummer/vocalist Scott Graves. In addition to writing their own music, they also produce records for other artists including The Black Keys, Animal Collective, Wavves, Crystal Castles and many more! The group currently consists of four members: guitarist Tom Higgenson (formerly known as Tomahawk), bassist Matt Smith (formerly known as Mothra), drummer Brian Eno (formerly known as Black Moth Super Rainbow) and keyboardist/v

In Defense of Rival Sons: A blog about the latest album from Austin, Texas’s Rival Sons.

Rival Sons is a band on the rise, and they have been making waves across the globe with their unique brand of classic rock. The band’s new album, “The Great Western Valkyrie,” is out now via Earache Records (UK) and Spinefarm Records (US).

In July of 2013, the band released their first full-length album in four years, “Head Down.” The album was met with acclaim from critics and fans alike, earning them multiple awards including Best New Artist at the 2013 Grammy Awards. In January 2014, the band released an EP titled “Great Western Valkyrie.” The EP featured three new tracks from the upcoming album as well as a new song called “Electric Man.”

In November 2013, Rival Sons announced that they would be playing at Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee on June 6th and 7th of 2014. They are also scheduled to perform at Lollapalooza on August 1st of this year.

On February 19th, 2014, Rival Sons released a music video for their song “Open My Eyes

In Defense of Rival Sons

A blog about the latest album from Austin, Texas’s Rival Sons.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been writing a blog on this site to accompany my new record In the Valley of the Sun. You can find all the posts on that record here: http://www.rival-sons.com/category/in-the-valley-of-the-sun/. I wanted to start out by explaining why I chose to put so much work into a bunch of blogs rather than making an EPK or something similar, and then convince you all that it is worth reading through them.

This is going to be a long one, but hopefully you find it interesting…

As mentioned in the first blog, we made some choices with this record that were very different from our previous ones. The goal was always to make more cohesive albums that didn’t have quite as many disparate songs as our previous ones did, but we also wanted to do it in a way that didn’t feel like we were repeating ourselves or getting stale. We did this by bringing in some new influences and experimenting with different ways of writing and playing music. This resulted in a few different styles of songs

The latest album from Austin, Texas’s Rival Sons is a testament to the power of rock and roll. Songs like “Electric Man” and “Pressure & Time” are pumping up the volume on a sound that is reminiscent of old-school classic rock bands like Led Zeppelin, but with a fresh twist.

The band’s lead singer, Jay Buchanan, has a voice that is both boisterous and soulful. His lyrics are honest and heartfelt. The whole album feels like it was recorded in one take, with no overdubs and no autotune.

The music industry has been looking for the next big thing in rock and roll for a while now. It’s been a long time since we had a band that could fill stadiums and sell out shows around the world. But I think Rival Sons might just be that band.

If you like good music, then you owe it to yourself to listen to this album. It will make you want to dance like nobody’s watching!

First off, I’ll say this – I’m a Rival Sons fan. This is not going to be some “I hate the new Rival Sons album” post (although I do know of one that was written by someone who attended their show in Austin, TX at SXSW in March). I am also not going to be writing something akin to a press release. Instead, I want to explain why I feel that Rival Sons has created an amazing album, and why I believe that this is the best album released so far in 2018.

Pressure & Time was released back in 2011, and instantly made people notice that hard-rock was not dead yet. Songs such as “All Over The Road” and the title track showed off Scott Holiday’s guitar work and Jay Buchanan’s vocals beautifully.

Head Down from 2012 continued this trend, with songs like “Keep On Swinging”, “Until The Sun Comes”, and “Run From Revelation” all being top-notch rock songs.

Great Western Valkyrie (2014) had some amazing songs on it as well, such as the title track, “Electric Man”, “Secret” and

When I first heard Rival Sons last summer, I was impressed with some of their songs enough to see them live at Lollapalooza. They were a little heavier than what I listen to on a regular basis, but they had an energy that enticed me to check out the album, which I did over the weekend. Even though it’s been months since I heard the songs live, there was definitely a familiarity to the album that made me feel like I knew the songs from my first listen (even though I didn’t). It’s not necessarily that it sounded familiar; rather, it sounded comfortable.

The lead singer has a voice that sounds like he’s been smoking for 20 years, but in a way that makes him sound cool, not sickly. The riffs are hard and heavy, but not ear-splittingly so. The drumming is powerful and complex but not complicated or too jazzy. The bass is prominent in the mix and reminds me of Jack White’s guitar tone from “Seven Nation Army.” The lyrics are pure rock ‘n roll without any sort of pretension or artifice. In short, this is classic rock ‘n roll for the 21

I’ve been a Rival Sons fan for about five years now, and I’m not quite sure why. They’re the classic rock band that never was: a four-piece American outfit that released their first album in 2010 and played over 1,000 shows over the course of the next few years — no small feat for an unsigned band. Since then, they’ve signed with Earache Records, which has put out two more albums: 2012’s Head Down and 2014’s Great Western Valkyrie.

As far as classic rock goes, they sound like a hybrid of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath (which is unsurprising considering the latter was something of a muse for them[1]). The music is grungy and bluesy, but it also has a decidedly modern twist to it. There are heavy guitar riffs and wailing vocals alongside electronic synths and soft piano melodies. The songs are rough around the edges and a bit dissonant at times — but altogether they work.

It’s my belief that this band is one of those rare few who have found success by doing things their own way and sticking to what they know best. In an age where every other band sounds like Kendrick Lamar or Drake (