Tapping the energy of punk rock with its loud guitars and driving rhythms
American indie rock trio Quiz Show – involving members of legendary DC alternative rock band Shudder To Think, Guided By Voices and The Dambuilders – has released their new single ‘Sound of Kissing’, a powerhouse preview of their eponymous debut album, due out March 17 via Montclair, NJ-based Magic Door Record Label.
Earlier, the band previewed the tracks ‘Dime A Dozen’ and ‘What If?‘.
This electrifying collection of 12 tracks involves Shudder To Think‘s Chris Matthews and Jesse Krakow, together with drummer Kevin March (Guided By Voices, The Dambuilders). Earlier, bassist Jesse Krakow had taken over from the original bassist Frank Gibbons and, more recently, Joe Billy has replaced Kevin March, whose drumming features throughout this album.
The ‘Quiz Show’ LP brings together the singles the band recorded with award-winning producer Ray Ketchem (Guided By Voices, Luna, Versus, Elk City, Gramercy Arms) between 2017 and 2020 at his Magic Door Recording Studio in Montclair, NJ. Ketchem also re-mastered these tracks for this release. Interesting fact: through this process, Matthews discovered that he enjoys singing as much as playing the guitar.
With Ketchem on board, Quiz Show released a string of singles – songs of protest, friendship and frustration – to a growing number of listeners. Tapping the energy of punk rock with its loud guitars and driving rhythms, the vocals strive to capture the emotional fervour of punky garage rock. Pushing boundaries with rhythms, arrangements, chord structures and vocals that expand from straight-ahead power to music, they weave together different influences, including classic rock, prog and alternative, to create complex and beautiful in unexpected ways.
“This is our first album! Quiz Show has been making music since 2017 and put out most of the songs on this release as singles between 2017 and 2020. We are releasing them now after remixing and remastering all of the songs to freshen them up so they can document the origin story of Quiz Show in a single package. This release also brings these songs under the amazing umbrella of the Magic Door record label,” says Chris Matthews.
“Quiz Show songs come together when ideas voiced through the guitars are set to rhythms constructed on the bass and drums. Lyrics come after the melodies, which themselves often emerge while Chris is driving around. These songs were created in the in-between spaces of complicated lives. We cherish this work and the feelings it describes. ‘Sound of Kissing’ was built this way and, like most of our songs, it uses lyrics to reflect a dissatisfaction with the limits on love, money, and time.”
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