Bryce Avary opens up about The Rocket Summer season’s superbly bold eighth album ‘SHADOWKASTERS,’ a daring, free-spirited fever dream stuffed with radiant vitality, beautiful sonic vigor, and unbridled ardour.

“Caught Inside Your Gentle” – The Rocket Summer season

A sure vitality is unleashed on The Rocket Summer season’s eighth studio album.

Daring and vivid, churning and charged, SHADOWKASTERS showcases Bryce Avary at his freest: Uninhibited, uncompromising, and unapologetic in his imaginative and prescient. The file ranges from intense and explosive to soothing and seductive; the lyrics are directly intimate and summary, grounded and ethereal. Synths soar and guitars roar because the one-man band creates an eclectic, immersive backdrop, staying true to his indie rock and power-pop roots whereas venturing farther and farther off the overwhelmed path, out into recent, uncharted territory.

Binding every thing collectively is a strong, acquainted voice: One stuffed with ardour, vigor, marvel, and resolve.

Dream in blue from my room, morning view
Have a take into consideration, have a take into consideration what to do
I used to be pondering ’bout, all the time pondering ’bout you
I used to be pondering ’bout, all the time pondering how
All the pieces inside my soul screams
“I used to be made for you.”

Stroll the streets on this metropolis, I discuss to me
Have a take into consideration, have a take into consideration
Desires in blue
I used to be pondering ’bout, all the time pondering ’bout you
I used to be pondering ’bout, all the time pondering how
All the pieces inside my physique screams
Inside my thoughts is reeling

– “M4U,” The Rocket Summer season

Launched Might 12, 2023 by way of Aviate Information, SHADOWKASTERS is a spectacular coalescence – a collision, actually – of uncooked emotion and radiant sound. Bryce Avary has been persistently pushing the bounds of his 20-year venture’s potential lately (as highlighted by 2016’s Zoetic and 2019’s Candy Shivers), and on his newest providing, he appears to tug collectively, fine-tune, and finesse every thing he’s realized all through the previous decade of sonic experimentation and musical exploration.

The result’s an unlimited and dramatic, but impressively cohesive file that grooves to the beat of its personal drums, synths, and guitars.

“With this album I allowed myself to faucet into lengthy inherent, however sonically uncared for locations of the soul, if you’ll, and simply begin exhaling,” Avary tells Atwood Journal. “It was one of many extra thrilling writing processes of my life but.”

“Initially I used to be writing fictional tales as a artistic train. My authentic plan was to place out quick movies and comics. So I began making these tiny soundtracks to those unreleased movies caught in my thoughts and realized by following that highway I discovered this magical key to one thing musically superior. It’s fascinating how one artistic spark can set hearth to one thing else.”

The Rocket Summer season has been Avary’s solo venture since 1999; over the previous 24 years, the Dallas–Fort Value-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer has used the moniker as a vessel for untethered inventive expression. As he’s developed, The Rocket Summer season has remodeled with him.

“It’s fascinating,” he displays. “I like the identify The Rocket Summer season. However I typically wrestle with the choice 16-year-old Bryce made to cover behind a reputation. Not a lot from a spot of individuals realizing it’s an individual writing / enjoying all of it, however I feel there’s a actuality that the general public typically understands that folks as people evolve over time, however when there’s a “model” it may possibly typically be tough, as a result of it will get related to so many alternative issues and roughly locked into perceptions. I’ve all the time simply adopted the songs my coronary heart was telling me to sing. It’s not contrived. I typically don’t make the identical file twice.”

Avary describes the brand new album as “the coexistence of Darkish and Vivid.” The title speaks to this duality:

“To forged a shadow, one should be caught inside the sunshine. The identify evokes considerably of a darker tone, which the music actually has, however it’s additionally this vivid sort of grit album if that make sense. I assumed it was the proper title.”

Current on the conceptual intersection of darkness and lightweight, SHADOWKASTERS is a young and turbulent fever dream – an immersive eruption rising up from unseen depths.

The file opens in a second of warmth and flux: “M4U” units the scene, capturing that compelling combine of sunshine and darkish sonic textures that helps this file stand out in so some ways. The psychedelic “Eyes 2 Skies” marks the primary of a number of anthems on the album, with heavy, hearty synths and thick beats melting into one hypnotizing, busy setting as Avary sings about tuning out the noise and specializing in oneself; “[it’s about] shifting on from poisonous energies and selecting self-love and love for others whereas leaning into the hope which will include tomorrow,” he explains.

That tune can be residence to a few of his favourite lyrics on the album: “My happiness is my revenge stands out to me,” he says. “I can’t wait to listen to that shouted in these rooms on this upcoming tour, ought to we play this tune.

So let’s be rain on parades
The place crooked kings rejoice
In my head whereas sporting crowns
of prеcious oppression
My happiness is my revеnge

Bought my eyes to the skies
I received mild I can’t cover
I’ll be down, strolling on air
Bought my eyes to the skies
Bought that look in my eyes
Like I’ll be doomed if I do care
What you bought

Additional highlights embody the technicolor explosion (and true mouthful) “Do You See Dreamscapes In Your Desires Earlier than The Desires Escape When The Solar Beams,” the sweetly glistening revelry “Vanillanor Figby,” the tight, feel-good headbanger “Sing on the High,” and the album’s immersive, achingly emotive, and completely entrancing lead single, “Caught Inside Your Gentle.”

“‘Caught Inside Your Gentle’ is a hypnotic indulgence full with ethereal, intoxicating guitar riffs and Avary’s stunningly hushed, intensely evocative vocals,” Atwood Journal wrote, including the tune to our Editor’s Picks this previous February. “Avary captures the all-consuming nature of affection and connection, pulling us deep into that singular euphoria and guaranteeing we don’t come as much as breathe till the very finish.”

“It’s in regards to the involuntary magnetic pull of one thing that consumes you,” Avary says of the tune. “A special sort of love tune. Once you expertise that sort of connection, that feeling looks like flight. I hope this tune lifts folks. It was enjoyable for me to create a narrative inside the instrumentation that sounded just like the chain of occasions of being kidnapped and beamed up in flight. Residing inside the vivid sparks of writing a brand new tune has all the time been my primary vice.”

A number of colours, sunbeams and different
shades of delirium
I feel I like you,
although I by no means meant to
You’ve already took me in

I’m caught inside your mild,
air beneath my, air beneath my toes
Frozen in time,
Am I dying?
As a result of right here every thing is gorgeous to me

Possibly it’s as a result of this album continues to be so recent and new, or perhaps it’s as a result of it’s The Rocket Summer season’s most unrestrained and free-flowing effort in properly over a decade; both approach, SHADOWKASTERS is a private {and professional} excessive for Bryce Avary.

“It’s my favourite album as of now within the discography, possible as a result of it’s the most recent, but additionally simply because it’s with out query probably the most sonically nuanced album,” he grins. “It’s been completed for a while, the longest I’ve ever had an album fully completed simply ready to be launched from the cage, so once I revisit the songs now with a while away from it to organize for the discharge, I hear these moments within the instrumentation that shock me every time. Each time I hear the lead synth melody for “Dreamscapes,” I see a Glastonbury crowd begin singing alongside in my thoughts. It might be fairly beautiful to get to play Glastonbury once more. My how I like our UK exhibits. I can’t wait to get again there!”

It’s a releasing album. There’s a theme of longing and but shifting ahead. The music lifts me, and I hope it makes folks really feel like they will fly.

From its radiant energies to its hovering, seismic sonics, SHADOWKASTERS is a refreshing and invigorating journey. It’s enjoyable to listen to an artist be so free and in his factor, and it’s inspiring to see that, over twenty years into the sport, The Rocket Summer season can nonetheless take off with breathtaking, unrelenting pressure. At 40, Bryce Avary continues to be chasing his goals with the wide-eyed marvel of his 16-year-old self.

Expertise the total file by way of our beneath stream, and peek inside The Rocket Summer season’s SHADOWKASTERS with Atwood Journal as Bryce Avary goes track-by-track by means of the music and lyrics of his dazzling and dynamic eighth studio album!

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:: stream/buy SHADOWKASTERS right here ::

:: join with The Rocket Summer season right here ::

‘SHADOWKASTERS’ – The Rocket Summer season

:: Inside SHADOWKASTERS ::

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M4U

“This was the first riff I wrote that started the SK journey, so to me, it made sense to kick off the album this manner. It units the tone of this sonically darkish and ominous however vivid and glossy groove album that’s SK. The tune’s distinctive grit and groove really feel acceptable as the “Hey, that is SK, now get in the automobile.” observe. Lyrically it’s about feeling a way of belonging some place else, typically feeling a way of not belonging to this planet, however somebody or one thing is what makes this world really feel like residence. I wrote it from the voice of 1 particular person to a different, however to me, it was additionally a metaphor about eager for a dream realized, for a launch, a reprieve.

Eyes 2 Skies

“Eyes 2 Skies” is a tune about selecting to soar above the clouds with out caring what folks might imagine that attempt to carry you down. It’s a few relentless pursuit of silencing voices, shifting on from poisonous energies, and selecting self-love and love for others whereas leaning into the hope which will include tomorrow. “My Happiness Is My Revenge…” I can’t wait to listen to this dwell. Sonically and manufacturing sensible there’s simply a lot happening on this observe. I received fairly into the sitar on this album and you’ll hear it start to be showcased on this tune. I significantly love the bridge and the way the keys dance round with the drum beat on this considerably polyrhythmic approach.

“Am I respiration once more? Crawling out out of your thumbprint. Am I leaving your circus? Am I making you nervous? Bought my eyes 2 the skies.”

“So we experience in our minds a bullet prepare shifting ahead by no means to return… my happiness is my revenge”

“I’ll be doomed if I do care what you bought of hate for me. I received love for me, love for you, love for me.”

Sing at The High

It’s a tune about newness. Whereas we by no means technically shed all of who we are, we shed a lot of our pores and skin each seven years or so. It’s a wild thought to assume that a lot of our make-up is definitely new from what it was years prior.  It’s about shifting ahead, not wanting again, at the very least not a lot. If there are any ‘attempting to change the world” motives right here, it’s to breathe and dance in opposition to the troubles, which can finally assist change the world. Whereas I’ve loads of songs that talk on to calls to motion, which I suppose there can by no means be sufficient of, the name to motion right here is to relaxation, discover reprieve, and groove. Then exit and love.

That is really one among the oldest songs I recorded on the album which was throughout the peak pandemic lockdown period. I had been having these dance punk events basically alone in LA and I needed to create one thing to be able to really feel alive. That is what occurred.

Caught Inside Your Gentle

“Caught Inside Your Gentle” began with a burst of auditory illumination in my studio the place inside minutes of selecting this straightforward, darkly-ominous-but-happy melody on a stratocaster, my favourite sorts of treasure melodies, enjoying a fast swung groove on an mpc and my minimoog bass, the intro was there, blasting on loop and I felt like I used to be being pulled upwards and hovering on this multi-colored spaceship of positivity. I simply let the music and melodies take me the place it was main and inform me what the tune was about as I floated round in my studio.  It’s in regards to the involuntary magnetic pull of one thing that consumes you. A special sort of love tune. Once you expertise that sort of connection, that feeling looks like flight. I hope this tune lifts folks. It was enjoyable for me to create a narrative inside the instrumentation that sounded just like the chain of occasions of being kidnapped and beamed up in flight. Residing inside the vivid sparks of writing a brand new tune has all the time been my primary vice.

Do You See Dreamscapes In Your Desires Earlier than The Desires Escape When The Solar Beams

This tune is one among my favorites. It was born out of a frozen trance I used to be caught in, in Texas throughout the ice storm that shut the entire state down at the starting of 2021. I had simply made the name to try to begin splitting time with LA the place I had lived solely for practically a decade and received this little spaceship-looking home with glass partitions in Texas. I used to be in it for just a few days earlier than this colossal storm hit. Ercot shut down all warmth and electrical energy and would solely permit rolling moments of very temporary energy to outlive it, and so for about 2 hours or so it will be uninhabitably frozen with zero electrical energy or warmth, after which for about 30 min my metropolis would get energy… a teasing style of life and heat. So for a few days I principally would solely go to sleep throughout these 30 min increments the place my physique would start to thaw and I started hallucinating. I might have these extremely vivid goals in these fast naps of what felt like love visiting me, then turning away simply to depart. So I might beg the love to remain. Each time the warmth would come on I might begin to fade into these visions of seeing issues like violet flowers sprouting out of frozen ice-covered floor. After which it will depart me. Certainly one of the instances it shut again off and I started to come back again, I heard the identify of the tune, sat up, and spoke it into my voice messages so I wouldn’t neglect it. Sonically, I needed to seize the full pleasure from the visitation of “love” amidst the craving. The lead synth melody and sitars simply make me so pumped. Each time I hear it I form of envision what it will be prefer to play it at Glastonbury, one among my favourite festivals I’ve ever performed. I wouldn’t need to relive that dreadful expertise however I’m grateful for the diamond the stress produced.

Hope Is A Treacherous Drug I’m Getting Excessive Although

This tune. It’s heavy. It’s received fangs. However you see the fangs due to the big smile it offers you. And it’s wildly colourful and stuffed with optimism. Hope can lead you into some corners which are exhausting to get out of, however I’d somewhat find yourself in the nook than not have hope. What’s a life with out hope? I felt somewhat devoid of hope for a time when every thing went away and the isolation for thus lengthy was taking its toll, however in the future I simply selected to be defiant and that I might be making a LIFE album. This recording has this nu metallic meets early 90’s uk dance pop factor to me and I completely adore it.

Disco in Circles

Simply one among my favourite tracks on the album. It’s a phenomenal sort of darkish. “I’m not speculated to know so I dance in the unknown. Ahead and backward till I get shut, near letting this go, near letting you go.” The magnificence in letting go and dwelling, and the stress of attempting to get there. I hope this instrumental of this tune turns into a theme tune for some moody netflix sequence. The sonic textures are black and white and darkish pink to me. I simply completely love the piano in the refrain and the descending vocal line. I don’t ever hearken to my music however proper now I might hearken to this tune on repeat.

Off The Hinge

I had made and blended the entire album and bumped into fairly just a few points getting it out. Vinyl delays for practically a yr as a result of the aftermath of the pandemic, tour concepts getting pushed again as a result of the aftermath of the pandemic, I went by means of prolonged negotiations with labels that finally I walked away from deciding to remain impartial on Aviate, I had a number of visible components get tabled and this was all after all after lots that all of us went by means of along with issues that I trudged by means of personally, individually… so I felt like I used to be standing behind a door that I used to be meant to stroll by means of, that on the different facet was a lot coloration, however it was locked.  So lengthy after the album had been blended, I sat down one afternoon and simply wrote this tune by no means meant to be on the album, purely as a cathartic launch for myself. I wrote and recorded and blended the whole tune in in the future. I get chills everytime I envision the hinge rattling and I “begin to kick” the door. My gosh. The cute petting zoo animal that lastly loses it and devours its abusive handlers and escapes. Followers appear to be actually enthusiastic about this. I typically all the time add a tune late in the course of after the albums are completed as a result of throughout the time of thick administrative duties getting an album to launch, I begin longing to put in writing, and in hindsight, what looks like greater than not, the tune added is nice, however it in all probability didn’t must be there because it wasn’t part of the authentic heartbeat of the album creation. This looks like an distinctive exception. I hope this tune is in one thing like a Marvel or Joker film trailer in the future. It simply explodes.

Vanillanor Figby

This tune was all the time an anchor tune for me for the album. I all the time assumed this may be a single. I simply love the chords and the melody and the lyrics. It sounds pink and black with hints of gold. I’m fairly happy with the manufacturing on this. It’s so dense. Strings, sitars, partitions of concord. I used to be writing extra fictional tales as artistic workouts and this one made its approach in. It’s about somebody on the lookout for their counterpart however the counterpart stays a figment of their creativeness. “I by no means cease anticipating a kismet intersecting. Meet me in one other life. Meet me in one other life quickly. Meet me, I’ll be protecting time. Meet me, I’ll be ready there for you.” I envision a dance membership in Brighton in the 90’s simply bumping this tune, however it’s in the future. The 2090’s I suppose.

Aloha, Hey

I used to be feeling homesick for Texas one night time whereas in LA and began watching all of those bands. I grew up watching on youtube and ended up happening this Dimebag Darrell rabbit gap. It was so nostalgic and actually introduced me again to being just a little child studying to play metallic riffs, so I grabbed my acoustic and mentioned to myself, “I would like to put in writing a heavy riff” and this riff got here out on my first play, which is after all fairly a bit poppier and quirkier than any Pantera tune. It was so low and sludgy, however kinda pop, so it in a approach jogged my memory of Morphine the band, or one thing, however it was its personal factor totally. I went to my mini Moog and performed the riff on that and thought “okay yeah that is funky… what even is that this” so I simply began following the tune and commenced to sing “It’s how I get by, I’ll relaxation once I die, no relaxation ’til I set the data on hearth.” It appears like a sports activities tune. I’ve lots of pent-up vitality from the previous few years and was simply able to scream and groove. I fairly love the line about “tamed dragon inside my chest, I stick out my tongue and on it mild a match, inhale one closing final affected person breath” after which the hook explodes which to me appears like respiration out hearth.

“Aloha, Hey,” “Off The Hinge,” and “I Say, I Say” are just a little three-piece rambunctious band amidst a faculty of over reaching dreamers.

I Say, I Say

I like this little groove and the journey the tune takes into some somewhat sonic insanity. I keep in mind once I went into the bridge part I had no thought what I used to be going to play, and simply began enjoying this off-the-wall piano riff after which tried to one way or the other land the aircraft. The recording is essentially from the inception of when it occurred in real-time. I feel there’s an vitality of standing your floor with this album. If Candy Shivers had components of the sound of resting, that is the sound of getting again up. “By no means cross a lion in malevolence. Don’t he don’t let go? Tried to bury me however I sprouted out, solely to develop, hold operating, you’re getting gradual.” That is the anthem to finish the file with.

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