Great write up this month in #news4u naming The Cold Stares as Entertainer of the Year for the tristate. Humbling and very thankful for the local support.
Tag Archives: Animal Kingdom
“Sleeping With Lions” in spot #1 in Spotify Editorial Playlist “Pure Rock & Roll”
Hop over to Spotify and check out our single “Sleeping With Lions” rocking out spot #1 in the killer Editorial Playlist “Pure Rock & Roll” with our mates #rivalsons and some other killer bands. “Sleeping With Lions” has been featured on Animal Kingdom TNT XGames and ESPN in 2018!
ON Spotify!
A great review of “Mountain” from Indiesource.com!
And yet another great review on “Mountain”- Happy Monday, now let’s get to the rock and roll…
IndieSource Review of Mountain
“In “Way Gets Dark,” one of the more homespun acoustic tracks to behold on The Cold Stares’ awesome new alternative blues juggernaut Mountain, the band doesn’t rely on imagistic lyrics alone to create a visual experience to accompany the music. The eerie echo of the lightly plucked strings sends a chilling sense of danger in our direction, and the lack of emotion in lead singer Chris Tapp’s voice kills any comfortability that his warm southern drawl may have provided. It’s like the path in front of us is literally getting darker; we’re trapped in this dry but sharply tuned mix next to the guitar, our minds left to wander after the crisp melody that could be waiting just beyond the horizon.
Mountain is driven by its evocative soundscapes, which appear when we’re least expecting them. At fifteen tracks, this is a monstrous LP that offers plenty of intriguing moments for newcomers to The Cold Stares’ sound to get acquainted with their style, but its cohesive, somewhat progressive qualities are what will satisfy the group’s longtime fans more than anything else. As incredibly different in rhythm as “Cold Black Water” and “The Plan” are, they play together in this record flawlessly, as if they were two sides of the same coin. What they have in common is the jarring, neo-noir soundscape that we’re greeted with in track one, “The Great Unknown,” and unable shake for the duration of the record.
I found myself taken aback when I discovered that The Cold Stares are comprised only of singer/guitarist Chris Tapp and drummer Brian Mullins. The abrasive “Stickemup” gets started with a colorful little guitar tizzy that sounds like an amalgamation of several string instruments layered on top of each other, while Mullins’ drum kit sounds twice the size of any other I’ve heard lately. “Wade In The Darkness,” “Gone Not Dead,” and really any of the heavier tracks on the record feel so much more mechanical in their execution than what I was expecting, and yet they’re so far removed from the digitalized sound of robotic pop/rock that even the most subtle differences between their melodies and that of their contemporaries is hard to ignore in these songs.
The most somber moment in Mountain ironically might also be The Cold Stares’ most triumphantly reverent so far – “Under His Command,” a Gothic folk ballad that brands us with a smoky vocal by Tapp that plays more like an epitaph than it does a rock song. His words stick to the paper thin strings like glue, and wherever his prose takes them, they melodically respond – in the gauntest of minor keys. This is my favorite song on the record, not because of any machismo-fueled rock luster, but because of its dark, witty minimalism.
I think that the best way to experience Mountain is to listen to its fifteen songs from beginning to end in the chronological order that The Cold Stares’ arranged them. In what can only be described as an operatic approach to making a bluesy garage rock record, this album starts off with a sonic beat down (“The Great Unknown” and more modest “Friend of Mine”), escalates to more methodical, emotional grounds (“Under His Command,” and “Stickemup”) before letting the harmonies go off the rails (“Gone Not Dead,” “Wade in the Darkness,” and the bone-rattling “Child of God”) and giving into this duo’s penchant for fusing nimbly wound rock songs into analogue-style blues rants (“Cold Black Water,” “Two Keys and a Good Book” and “Killing Machine” just to name some highlights). There’s a lot for music enthusiasts to ponder in this album, but there’s just as much excitement for casual fans to discover in its intricately stylized songs as well.”
Another great review in of “Mountain” on Gashouseradio.com
Another great review in on “Mountain”. Overwhelmed by the critical response so far. If you don’t have the album yet please grab it here- Mountain on Amazon Music
Review of Mountain on Gashouseradio.com
“The Cold Stares may have flirted with the idea of blending together their pastoral and more abrasive influences with Head Bent, but this album is much more representative of their true identity as a band. Mountain is assaultive, unapologetic and surprisingly emotional – but more than anything else, it’s an unadulterated look at The Cold Stares for who they really are.”
SiriusXM Octane
Thanks to the folks at No Depression Magazine for the great review of our new album Mountain.
Thanks to the folks at No Depression Magazine for the great review of our new album Mountain.
“You don’t need a lot of crazy, overindulgent solos to make a good guitar record in 2018, and The Cold Stares’ Chris Tapp proves as much in the band’s new album Mountain. The record’s opening set includes the stop-start alternative rocker “The Great Unknown,” the swinging blues tune “Friend of Mine” and the organic “Under His Command,” which together set the table for what we can expect in the dozen tracks that follow by showing off the three pillars of The Cold Stares’ guitar-oriented sound. “The Great Unknown” represents the trudging power chord rock that we were introduced to in their last record Head Bent; “Friend of Mine” offers us a taste of their more relaxed, radio-friendly side in the form of a patient guitar lick; and “Under His Command” serves as a sampling of their uniquely contrasting acoustic songs that leave a trail of hostile energy in their wake.
Mountain is structured in three song suites that steamroll over our senses without a second thought; “Stickemup,” rises from the ashes of “Under His Command” and bleeds right into “Gone Not Dead” and the bulging “Wade In The Darkness,” which pristinely reverberates like a lonely voice bouncing off of huge canyon walls. Drummer Brian Mullins doesn’t command every song with his calculated arrangements, but the songs that he does make a big impact on (“Sleeping With Lions” and “Cold Black Water” particularly) are the best of the album. Tapp’s lyrics are a constant presence and tend to overshadow some of the more plaintive musical bits in tracks like “Child of God” or the correspondingly muted “The River,” and I actually think that his style of prose goes out of its way to be more creative and freewheeling than it has to be exclusively with this result in mind.
The Cold Stares are very good at taking a simple song and transforming it into a roots rocking firestorm, which is demonstrated perfectly in “The Plan.” The mix of this track is what takes it out of the pastureland and drops it into a crowded concert hall – every gilded nuance of Tapp’s heart-pumping blues guitar is highlighted with great detail, and Mullins’ drumming occasionally gets so overwhelming that it feels like his cymbals are going to come crashing through the invisible barrier between recorded music and tangible reality itself. The same can be said of the familiar melody we find in “Way Gets Dark,” which borrows heavily from the folk/blues of yesteryear but comes across as authentic and original thanks to The Cold Stares’ tailor-made equalization.
For a record that feels like it’s actually two LPs crammed into a single disc, there isn’t a spot of filler in Mountain to be skipped over, and if anything the more streamlined tracks make the progressive flow even more lucid and relatable to the listener. Obviously our attention is, more often than not, drawn to Tapp’s vicious guitar play on this record, which flirts with classic rock tonality but remains relatively contemporary courtesy of this sublimely textured mix. But to be frank, what probably affected me more than anything else here was the relationship between his verses and the riffs; the way they seem to reflect each other’s pain and longing for calm amidst all this musical chaos. In that sense Mountain isn’t just more sonically mature than what The Cold Stares have produced in the past, it’s also more aesthetically evocative and creatively diverse.”
Vents Magazine review of Mountain
Another great review in today on our new album Mountain from Vents magazine. Worth a read-
Humbled again. Hear Mountain now!
“Singer Chris Tapp preaches elements of the Christian gospel in “Under His Command,” “Child of God” and “Two Keys and a Good Book,” but his words aren’t dripping with a self-righteousness that would repel non-religious listeners. The imagery that these verses inspire isn’t rosy or divine; it’s grimacing and reflective, like a message from beyond the grave voiced by those who have once walked the road we’re on now. There’s a great deal of continuity between these songs that is reminiscent of flipping through pages of a Bible; with each passage we consume, we find another hidden lesson suggesting how we can right our past wrongs.”
Vents Magazine – Mountain
Mountain is now available!
“Mountain” available from online retailers – here! –> Mountain
“Mountain” on Vinyl is available – here! –> Mountain – Limited Edition, Limited Run Vinyl
Congratulations to our man Axell Hodges for winning gold!
Congratulations to our man Axell Hodges for winning the gold on this fall’s X-Games on ESPN!
The video segment was shot to The Cold Stares new single “Sleeping With Lions” and we are very proud to be part of the winning team. The video from ESPN has seen over a million views online and will be shown throughout 2019. Thank you to Monster Energy, Axell and Ash Hodges, ESPN and X-Games for choosing “Sleeping With Lions”.
Hear “Sleeping With Lions” on Spotify now!
Breaking down the songs of Mountain, day two – “Wade in the Darkness”
EIGHT Days till the release of our new album “Mountain”. Today I’m going to break down “Wade in the Darkness” from the album.
After the good fortune of landing Sleeping With Lions on Animal Kingdom, I had started to really focus on cinematic themes. I had always written visually, and anything that I write I “see” in my head before and during the writing process. That keeps any lyrics from showing up in the songs that are generic or not connected personally to me. For about a week I re-emersed myself into a few of the shows I had watched that really impacted my writing in the last ten years. Carnivale and Deadwood from HBO, Heat, Sexy Beast, Unforgiven, some classic westerns. One theme that I kept coming back to was how we suffer things or go through things in our past that we try to leave behind, and disconnect from. Could be almost anything, and not always super negative, but sometimes when it’s something that was very emotional for us as humans we don’t really want to visit that place in our minds and relive through something with that kind of weight.
“Wade in the Darkness” is about entering those areas in our mind where those memories lie, and how those things in our past affect our future and our decisions. I wanted the song to stand on it’s own with drums, to have an eerie slide guitar in it, and be somewhat of a dark Daniel Lanois feel. We had pitched it to “The Walking Dead”, and were very close to a license with it but didn’t happen. I have a feeling it still might land in something this year. One of my favorite off the album for the feel. In my mind, visually the narrator was walking down a flight of steps into the darkness to deal with what he had left behind. I hope you enjoy it when you hear the song.
Wade in the Darkness
They say there are some things we never leave too far behind
Traces of faces, places in the back of our mind
Wade in the darkness, away from the light, and pray that we just make it out alive
Banded together, the fears that burn in your chest
Haunted by dreams that never seem to let you rest
Wade in the darkness, away from the light, pray that we can make it out alive
I hear you calling, I still hear you calling….
through the echo’s of this rain, that never stops falling,
that never stops falling
Wade in the darkness, away from the light, and pray that somehow we make it out alive
Wade in the darkness, away from the light, and pray that somehow we make it out alive
Breaking down songs of Mountain, day one – “Sleeping with Lions”
We are 9 days away from the release of “Mountain” now. We thought it might be cool to break down some of the songs from the album for you guys. We’ll start out with our single “Sleeping With Lions”.
Pre-cancer, so around late 2011 I had the main riff of the song and it had morphed into a song called “Come Apart”. At that time it was angsty relationship song with what I felt were sub-par lyrics. We were playing the song out some and had even cut a demo in the studio. “Come Apart” didn’t feel up to snuff to me, and so it didn’t make the cut. Move forward two years and I was in the middle of chemo and radiation fighting cancer. We were doing everything that we could to move forward and keep recording. I literally was in the studio with Brian and Greg with a rash covering my body from the chemo trying to cut guitars. It was during that time that I kept coming back to this powerful guitar riff, and the opening anthem type melody. It just felt like it deserved lyrics that would match the power of the riff. I had been reading and focusing on people that had faced great adversity and overcome through faith. Two men really stood out to me, one was Job and the other Daniel from the bible. Both having to survive on nothing but faith. I could really relate to that. At the time I was also thinking about legacy, and that if something happened to me, any lyrics I left behind I wanted to inspire people. I was driving home one night and starting singing a line in my head over the guitar riff. “I hold the light that lights the pathway”. The way I write a lot of times is to construct the entire song in my head. I write a line, repeat, add another, repeat two, and another repeat three, until I’ve written and memorized something until I can make it to a pen and paper. By the time I had gotten home I had the chorus. “I hold the light that lights the pathway, I hold the key that locks the door, I mark the steps that lead to freedom, I swim the sea that leads to shore”. It was a declaration of giving 100% trust and faith to God that he would lead me through whatever was to happen.
I sat down and wrote the rest of the song in probably 2-3 minutes. The first verse I imagined a prisoner, locked away with no hope. Metaphors for a woman trapped in an abusive relationship, a kid stuck in a bad home, someone fighting disease, people silenced for their views, anyone trying to overcome. “Well they took them a hammer, and they took them a nail. And they built you a prison, and they made you a cell. And they gave you no ransom, and they set you no bail. No view of a heaven, yea they gave you their hell.”
Second verse came easily as well, and it is the story of David which still makes me shudder to think about. “Daniel on his knees, he continued to pray, and the king he forbid him, and they led him away. And they laid him with lions, and they told him goodbye. They returned in the morning, just to find him alive.” It is the universal story of faith and perseverance.
Forward months later, and I was on the mend and we cut the new song which was now “Sleeping With Lions”. With no releases immediately coming up we sat on the song. Forward a couple years and we had given some songs to our new publisher who was synching songs to television. Out of all the songs he had to pick from he kept telling me that “Sleeping With Lions” would land somewhere. I wasn’t so sure, and didn’t see it as a single. Sometimes this happens when you are very close to a song and it seems like it was just written for your circumstance. Regardless, I said sure, give it a shot. A few months later I got the call that it had been chosen out of our songs for the “Animal Kingdom” show on TNT. The rest as they say is history. “Sleeping With Lions” then followed up to be placed on ESPN’s coverage of the X-Games this fall. We have a good inclination that you will also hear it on something big in 2019. It was released October 1st 2019 as the first single off of “Mountain” and was added to 12 Spotify Editorial Playlists. To put that in perspective, on our last album “Break My Fall” and “Head Bent” were added to ONE each. Previous releases saw NO playlists placements. “Sleeping With Lions” is currently doing 10-15,000 streams per day and has done 180,000 since October 1st at the time I’m writing this.
I want to add one more note while we are on this subject. Bands ON record labels release records and spend tens of thousands of dollars to have consultants recommend their songs for Spotify playlists. Even after doing that, most do not see any of their songs make the editorial playlists. Those lists are the new top 40. The fact that we have released this record, WITHOUT a label, without consultants, paid for by our fans, and had this success solidifies that it’s a new world out there and this can be done without labels. It requires a lot of hard work, a lot of hustle, and more than anything a lot of FAITH. See you tomorrow with another track explanation. CT
Sleeping with Lions on Spotify
Call or post a request for “Sleeping With Lions” on SiriusXM Octane or email Octane@siriusxm.com them and help us continue the success.
“Sleeping With Lions”
Well they took them a hammer
And they took them a nail
And they built you a prison, and they made you a cell
And they gave you no ransom, and they set you no bail
With no view of a heaven, yeah they gave you their hell
But I hold the light that lights the pathway
I hold the key that locks the door
I mark the steps that lead to freedom
I swim the sea that leads to shore
Daniel on his knees, he continued to pray
And the king he forbid him, and they led him away
And they laid him with lions, and they told him goodbye
They returned in the morning, just to find him alive….
I hold the light that lights the pathway
I hold the key that locks the door
I mark the steps that leads to freedom
I swim the sea that leads to shore