Winchester Revival - Burden's Landing

Does anyone else remember the good old days about 20 years ago when all you needed to make good rock was as many guitars as you could cram into your band, a cute(ish) frontman and fierce integrity? Does anyone else who identifies as Generation X miss those days terribly? Enter, thankfully, Winchester Revival. This new band out of Oakland, California has taken all the good things from 90s alternative rock and made it their own with modern techniques and incredibly heartfelt and intelligent lyrics. Move over, modern indie pabulum - Winchester Revial is here to take us out of the doldrums.

It's not that indie is necessarily stale right now, but it seems sub-genres rule the landscape, and if a band is not part of one of those sub-genres, they don't get a lot of attention. We have blues indie, indie folk, dream pop, and of course the most lame of all, pop-punk. If you're not handy with a ukulele or sporting a curly mustache, you can forget about radio play, and that's a shame. My hope is that since Winchester Revival has a slightly hipster-y name and their release is partially signed to BMI, a large record company in the states, they may have a better shot than most at getting their amazing brand of sensitive stargazer grunge out to the masses. If they don't, it's once again the masses' loss.

"Burden's Landing" was just released in early March of this year and is Winchester Revival's second EP in as many years. Eyes in the Canopy was their first EP in 2014, and both albums showcase Winchester Revival's interesting sound and left me wanting more. Eleven songs is not enough! The first thing that will jump out at most listeners is singer David Rosenheim's vocals and lyrics. Brassy and very 90s, my GenX crew might be reminded of the obscure 90s grunge band, Dig, and their vocalist Scott Hackwith. Rosenheim's voice is a little more flexible than Hackwith's, however, and his lyrics are more developed in terms of content.

Some of the guitar work on Burden's Landing is also similar to Dig and some other 90s grunge and shoegaze bands like Hum or even Stone Temple Pilots. Again, however, there's a sense of more refinement to Andrew Lund's guitar playing and track composition, as well as a more dreamy quality. This is one of the ways Winchester Revival has modernized grunge. All the analog instruments; vocals, guitar, Ron Cruz's bass guitar and Kirk Snedeker's drums are all performed at a very high level of musicianship, making for a clean outline to their passionate and heavy grunge core. The other element which adds a dream pop note to and thus modernizes the bands sound is Matt Glick's electronic accompaniment, which in most places is very subtle. If you're wondering what that small indistinguishable quality is in some songs which makes them sound at once polished and dreamy, it's probably Glick's input.

"Burden's Landing" opens with 'Last Night in Toyko,' a multi-style piece which begins with one melody and backing track, vacillates through A-B-A-B-C structure per the standard rock song rules. Then towards the end the guitars suddenly gear up, the key changes in a very subtle way, and a 'D' part comes in to close out the song. It's unexpected and adds some definite interest to the song. The next song, 'Ides of January,' sees Glick's electro samples hit in earnest, and they are balanced out by Rosenheim's vocals and very personal lyrics.

'Dilligence' stands out on the album for its really cool dreamy guitar riff and a nice balance between a sort of frenetic verse and a floaty, pretty chorus. 'Keep it Together' is quite a departure as it's almost all electronic, and I believe it is intended to introduce the next song, 'Salamander.' Likely to be the first single off of "Burden's Landin" I think the band see 'Salamander' as the apotheosis of the album. To be sure, this track seems to blend each member's own talent into one epic song which both features the individual players and shows their prowess as a band.

The closing track, 'Ice Water' is my personal favourite, mostly because it's the most pure grunge-sounding, but also because it has some interesting syncopation and drum work. The chorus is also very shoegazer, and I'm a sucker for that stuff. It's interesting the way Rosenheim has been able to create such a shoegazey quality to his vocals, as they are in a pretty high register and normally we associate shoegaze with low, monotonous vocals. Rosenheim has the ability to be emotional and passionate while connecting a beautiful minor key to his voice, and it works really well in this track.

If you haven't deduced this yet, I am recommending Winchester Revival wholeheartedly for stream, download, whatever you've got. Not only is this band full of great musicians, a well-balanced sound and heartfelt lyrics, but they're rallying against some of the more boring elements of indie music right now. I can't thank them enough for that, really. In the U.S. the lack of diversity to the indie scene right now is killing it. The only way independent music can survive is if some bands break free of the pack and establish a new indie sound once the old trends are played out. Winchester Revival is reaching back to the 90s to bring that great passion and hard guitar rock forward, stopping in dream pop and electronic music along the way. Both Burden?s Landing and Eyes in the Canopy are available to stream and purchase on Winchester Revival's Bandcamp page, and check their website for details on an upcoming album tour. Mar 17 2015