June 23 2014 – One of the highlights of last October’s Indie Week festival was Frankie McQueen, a high energy hard rock band from Calgary. The band is a trio of Scotty Charles on lead vocals and guitar, Corey Adams on bass and Connor Muth on drums. Frankie McQueen just released a great new EP, their second, called Nightride.
About Nightride, frontman Scotty Charles told us, “The first EP was recorded 3 years ago, we were a totally different band. Back then we were a 4 piece. The last EP was recorded with a completely different philosophy. A lot of time was put into getting everything to sound perfect and polished. There was a ton of layering which we felt affected the integrity of the songs. We wanted to capture a lot more soul in the recording of this album. After becoming a three piece we honed our sound and really focused on making things simple. Just drums, bass and guitar. We wanted it to sound dirty, grungy and noisy. Rock n’ Roll shouldn’t be perfect, we wanted to have a sense of humanity on the record so we kept some mistakes, some flubs and some gross sounding shit. At the end of the day we are a trio of children with instruments in our hands, we want to be loud, noisy and rowdy.”
Rowdy and hard drivin’, this 6 song EP carries on the distinctive and familiar Frankie McQueen sound. Charles plays some scorching guitar throughout. Nightmare in particular kicks ass. Corey Adams is one of out favourite bassists in the country and with Corey Muth make up one of the hardest rocking rhythm sections around.
Highlight of the EP is No, It’s A Cardigan (But Thanks For Noticing) with it’s heavy riffs and Muth’s huge drum sound figuring prominently on the equally huge choruses. What I’ve Become may be the most interesting song on the EP and doesn’t fit into the hard rock mold. A gentle introspective song with Charles’ plaintive vocals questioning his decisions in life. The outro vocals are reminiscent of My Morning Jacket’s haunting Dondante.
Admirably produced by Kirill Telichev at The Sound Priory Recording Studio, despite Charles’ assertion that it contains “some gross sounding shit”, it really has a polished sound.
Frankie McQueen is looking forward to getting back to Toronto for Indie Week 2014 and we can’t wait to see them tear up the stages here again.
Nightride can be streamed at their website www.frankiemcqueenmusic.com and streamed or downloaded at frankiemcqueen.bandcamp.com.
Article by Steve Mallinson
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