Thursday, March 28, 2013

The Front Bottoms to release album and tour

Bar/None Records is proud to announce the highly anticipated album Talon of the Hawk by New Jersey’sThe Front Bottoms on May 21, 2013. For a band whose much-celebrated self-titled debut album resonated amongst a very broad audience and whose music covered equally as much territory, The Front Bottoms are gearing up to explore even more territory with a bigger and brighter new sound that’s much more realized yet very much The Front Bottoms.
 
Written mostly on the road over the span of the last year, Talon of the Hawk is the sound of a band that is coming into their own.  “It's hard to say how much The Front Bottoms means to us,” they both say. “It has become so much of a lifestyle at this point. It's not our jobs, hobbies, nor our obligation. It's just who we are.” At once immediate and catchy while also complex and profound, the music of The Front Bottoms is a study in contrasts, something The Daily Newscaught on when they called their debut “endlessly fascinating” and crowning it one of the Top Ten for 2011.  Bob Boilen of NPRchimed in, saying “the young duo's smart, irreverent, self-titled debut strikes a deft balance between the comical and the emotional.”  Charming and comical with a very real heart, their music isn’t just a byproduct of their overactive youthful imaginations… as they stated earlier, it’s just who they are.
 
Kicking off the record with the snarky send-off “Au Revoir (Adios)”, it’s evident that Talon of the Hawk isn’t a departure but an extension of their last record. Their ode to marijuana, “Skeleton” is an herb-inspired rock song that’s just begging to become a sing-along staple at their live shows. The driving melody of“Lone Star” begs to be blasted out of the windows of a cross-country road trip.  It is this very visceral and tangible sense of imagery that makes The Front Bottoms so relatable and so refreshing.  Brian’s trademark stream-of-conscious lyrics is most evident on the seemingly-inspired-by-“La Bamba” track“Back Flip”, which explores regrettable tattoos, the process of breathing, and anticipating the changing of traffic lights. The contemplative and epically soaring “Twin Size Mattress” (the first publically released track from the album) embodies everything that made them such breakthrough artists… the surreal lyrics, Brian’s obtuse phrasing, the fascinatingly intricate guitar melodies, and Mat’s confident drumming. The song’s video – a road film of sorts - begins and ends with their van… the perfect embodiment of their last two years spent on the road, logging in hundreds of show, playing for thousands of fans, traveling countless miles of pavement. Find the video here: http://youtu.be/-1rzsT2t2YY.

The Front Bottoms will be hitting the road on a national tour soon after the album’s release, starting off with their triumphant return to Hoboken’s Maxwell’s on June 1st and spending the next six weeks circling the US and wrapping up mid-July inCambridge, MA’s Sinclair (tour dates below).  Tickets will be available starting 12noon EST on Thursday, March 28th athttp://tfb.ducatking.com for all shows EXCEPT the following: Washington DC  June 2nd (http://goo.gl/w6Gy8) and Philadelphia June 11th (http://goo.gl/15Tmd - password: hawk).
 
Formed in Northern Jersey, The Front Bottoms grew organically throughout the underground.  First tackling local Jersey media like The Jersey Journal (“…quirky love songs with dollops of synths, trumpet, and strings that command your attention”), The Star-Ledger (“It is hard to come away from an encounter with The Front Bottoms without developing protective feelings about the band akin to those that Jonathan Richman’s fans feel about him”) and Aquarian Weekly (“an indie-pop sound similar to that of Piebald with the vocal style of Say Anything… Impressive!”), the band quickly garnered rave reviews from national outlets such as Alternative Press, Filter, All Music Guide, DRUM Magazine, Beyond Race Magazine, AOL, Absolute Punk, Jersey Beat, and Sputnik Music among many others, and even caught the eye of the Los Angeles Times who declared “This is a pop soundtrack for learning to live in the moment.”
 
The Front Bottoms is Brian Sella (vocals/guitar), Matt Uychich (drums),Tom Warren (bass), and Ciaran O'Donnel (keys/trumpet/guitar).  Talon of the Hawk will be released on Bar/None Records on May 21, 2013.
 

THE FRONT BOTTOMS
on tour
Jun 1 Maxwells (Hoboken, NJ)
Jun 2 Black Cat Backstage (Washington, DC)
Jun 4 The Jewish Mother Backstage (Norfolk, VA)
Jun 5 Local 506 (Chapel Hill, NC)
Jun 6 Roc Bar (Jacksonville, FL)
Jun 7 Wills Pub (Orlando, FL)
Jun 8 Drunken Unicorn (Atlanta, GA)
Jun 10 Fitzgerald’s (Houston, TX)
Jun 11 Mohawk (Austin, TX)
Jun 13 The Rhythm Room (Phoenix, AZ)
Jun 14 House of Blues (San Diego, CA)
Jun 15 Constellation Room (Santa Ana, CA)
Jun 16 Brick & Mortar Music Hall (San Francisco, CA)
Jun 18 Backspace (Portland, OR)
Jun 19 The Vera Project (Seattle, WA)
Jun 21 The Shred Shed (Salt Lake City, UT)
Jun 22 Marquis Theater (Denver, CO)
Jun 23 Jackpot (Lawrence, KS)
Jun 24 The Firebird (St. Louis, MO)
Jun 26 Triple Rock (Minneapolis, MN)
Jun 27 Subterranean (Chicago, IL)
Jun 28 Pike Room @ The Crofoot (Pontiac, MI)
Jun 29 Musica (Akron, OH)
Jun 30 Smiling Moose (Pittsburgh, PA)
Jul 1 The Waiting Room (Buffalo, NY)
Jul 2 Lost Horizon (Syracuse, NY)
Jul 10 The Space (Hamden, CT)
Jul 11 World Café Live (Philadelphia, PA)

Jul 12 Webster Hall (New York, NY)
Jul 13 The Sinclair (Cambridge, MA)

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