Christian McNeill & Sea Monsters
New Music this Week
BEST OF 2012 Selection
NEW RELEASE - Christian McNeill & Sea Monsters will celebrate their debut record, Everything’s Up For Grabs (Q-Dee Records) on Tuesday. Later this week the record release will be celebrated as part of a two-night celebration (Friday, Nov 9 and Saturday, Nov 10th) at Precinct in Union Square in Somerville, MA - a place the band has made home the last three years with a Sunday night live residency.
WHAT WE LIKE - The record is a beautiful throwback - it has a classic, soulful sound driven by McNeil's powerful voice and great instrumentation. On several of the tracks we got chills as it seemed like Van Morrison had entered the room and found himself on the record. While this is not the case, it's easy to see why people very much like what McNeil and Co are putting down. The record was produced by Ed Valauskas at Q-Division (Pixies, Aimee Mann, James Taylor, Dropkick
Murphys, Roy Sludge), a Boston area studio that continues to strike gold each new season. The sound here on "Everything" is glowing and not over-produced - it's really quite great. I've found something new on "Everything" with each listen - altogether, this is one really nice package.
Sea Monsters include some Boston all-stars in guitarists Lyle Brewer, Duke Levine, Tim Gearan, bassist Mike Miksis, keyboardist Ben Zecker, drummer Tom Arey, and two simpatico brothers on horns, Scott and John Aruda. Soul singer Jesse Dee, who co-founded the Sea Monsters, sings lead vocals on the title track, and esteemed duo of Dwight Ritcher & Nicole Nelson (who can currently be seen on NBC’s popular TV Show - “The Voice”) add some fantastic backup vocals on the record.
Comments