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PureVolume streams Shepherds new LP, Exit Youth

In recent years, Atlanta has been fertile ground for musical experimentation. On top of innovative bands like Deerhunter, the Black Lips, not to mention the slew of hip hop acts to emerge from the ATL is Shepherds. Combining a tantalizing mix of postpunk, soul and alt rock, the trio have the chops and a diverse sound that makes them one of the more interesting bands to emerge in 2015. Conceived over a three-year period in singer/guitarist Jonathan Merenivitch’s life, when he battled an internal push-and-pull over his decision to make music his full time career, Exit Youth show great promise from the band.

“Exit Youth is all about the wreckage of your late 20s when you pursue a career in the arts,” Merenivitch explains. “Dealing with self-loathing, poverty, useless knowledge, nepotism, entitlement, procrastination and the idea that your dreams aren’t going to come true. I believe the idea of broken dreams is a healthy one. Acceptance of this allows you to get rid of the adolescent nonsense that may be holding you back. Basically, you gotta grow up sometime and pay attention to things that are more important—more important than music, photography, film, etc. Gettin’ your shit together.” LISTEN HERE…

by Baby Robot Media

No Depression reviews Quaildogs debut LP The Getting Old Factory

The Quaildogs bring something special to the table, that’s for sure. They seamlessly blend the gently earnest tone and harmonies of today’s hipster folk with the casual, back-handed irony of ’90s alt-rock. The end result is deliciously sharp.The Getting Old Factory begins with a hopeful chord, those trendy tambourines, and firmly puts us in our place:

I cook my food in a microwave
Think about all the time I saved
Haven’t left my apartment in days
But something tells me that the world still looks the same

The lyrics might seem more at home with distorted guitars and a shot glass, but the Quaildogs’ irrepressible determination to be unhappymakes it work. Somehow, the Quaildogs avoid irony. They capture the impatience of the early 20s (“Oh, shit — is this all there is? For the rest of my life? For real?”) with a resigned fatalism. Unlike their ’90s counterparts (and perhaps a little too in line with us millenials), they accept the drudgery of early adulthood without a fight. But The Getting Old Factory is more affirming than it is a downer. Maybe it’s because the lyrics are just so damn smart. With most of the songs clocking in at above 4 minutes, the album is one of those rare instances were rock’n’roll is elevated to something that is — dare I say — beautiful, intentional, and artistic. The Getting Old Factory is one of the best albums I’ve come across this year. READ MORE…

by Baby Robot Media

Immersive Atlanta reviews the new debut LP from Shepherds

The dreamy qualities of Shepherds’ recent single “Reverie” failed to prepare us for the pummeling force of their debut LP, Exit Youth. Coated in a thick, sopping layer of static, the new record is a musical maze which propels the listener down jagged hallways of catharsis and absurdity. When Shepherds appear to reach a dead end, they power through it, revealing solid walls to be only misty curtains of musical preconception, ripe to be torn away.

No song on the album represents the whole. Instead, each track occupies a completely different facet carved out by Jonathan Merenivitch’s understated guitar, Peter Cauthorn’s insistent bass and Adrian Switon’s deceptively simple drumming. Exit Youth is Merenivitch’s brainchild, an idea which germinated during a three-year period during which he played with Del Venicci and Janelle Monae, but the unerring musicality of the trio is also due to Cauthorn’s and Switon’s experience in Mood Rings and Bataille, respectively. READ MORE…

by Baby Robot Media

Pancakes and Whiskey features People’s Blues of Richmond’s CMJ Fest 2015 performance from Baby Robot Media / Rocker Stalker / SwitchBitch Records / Behind The Curtains Media showcase

It may have been an early, 30-minute daytime set, but the People’s Blues of Richmond didn’t need a whole lot of time to leave one hell of an impression. “We’re here to prove that rock and roll isn’t dead,” declared vocalist Matthew Volkes. While that might be a bold statement for some, the band sure lived up to that promise as they executed a rioting set that thundered throughout the basement of The Bowery Electric.

Hailing from Richmond, Virginia, the band held nothing back as they mercilessly pounded through a hard-hitting set of psych rock that was certainly not for the faint of heart. It was loud, it was manic, and hit you squarely in the chest. Keeping true to their rock in roll pledge, their tracks unapologetically explored cultural themes of sex, drugs, and violence in a thrashing performance that had moments of Zeppelin-esque vibes. READ MORE…

by Baby Robot Media

Diffuser premieres new single from Shepherds

Atlanta three-piece Shepherds’ full-length debut, Exit Youth, is said to address “getting old and realizing your dreams aren’t gonna come true” — in other words: coming of age. And what captures youthful malaise better than contemplating what could’ve been over a bed of noisy guitars?

That’s what frontman Jonathan Merenivitch, bassist Peter Cauthorn and drummer Adrian Switon (Cauthorn and Switon double as members of Atlanta’s Mood Rings and George Bataille Battle Cry, respectively) do on “King of Wasted Potential” — the latest track to emerge from the forthcoming Exit Youth — which Diffuser is happy to premiere today.

“It’s pretty much the story of me dropping out of law school to play music only to end up broke, trapped in the service industry with a college degree leaking out of my ears,” Merenivitch tells Diffuser. “The song is a pure representation of the desire every band has — some will deny this, but it’s true — to make a shameless, universal pop song that even the coworkers at your dead-end job might enjoy.” LISTEN HERE…

by Baby Robot Media

Veteran music writer Jewly Hight with an excellent piece on Aaron Lee Tasjan for the Nashville Scene

Not too long ago, Aaron Lee Tasjan and a buddy of his were asked to play “dudes who looked like they were from the ’70s” in a music video, a request they were happy to oblige.

“But it made us think,” says Tasjan, his heavy-lidded eyes fixating on the coffeeshop tabletop from behind horn-rimmed glasses, “because at some point in the last few years, it seems like a lot of people have gravitated towards this kinda like Heartworn Highwaysaesthetic of the music they’re gonna make and the kinda look they’re gonna have. We were like, ‘We’re just dudes from the Midwest that grew up listening to Bob Seger-type music, and we just always thought this stuff looked cool. … Well, where does this leave us now? Have we become the thing that we were trying to originally rebel against by wearing this stuff?’

“We wrestled with that for a while,” he continues, “but eventually we just gave up and went to the bar or something.”

Like a lot of 20-something artists, Tasjan is pretty much constantly pricked by self-awareness, and more than once he’s spun those uneasy thoughts into a song. The Jayhawks-ish twang-rocker “E.N.S.A.A.T.” (“East Nashville Song About a Train”) that appears on his new album In the Blazes is an eye roll at the notion of musical posturing, be it the contemporary country, punk or Americana variety. The latter is Tasjan’s niche. He implicitly links himself to a boho identity that borrows from blue-collar sensibilities and is firmly rooted in the East Side, where he lives. READ MORE…