"I didn't drive 2300 miles just to walk back through your door"
The Angry Lisas hail from Portland, Oregon and their latest, Wingwalkers, from their upcoming album "Slate Violet", is a wistful indie rocker with folk rock affections. The bottom heavy drum beat, sad bass line, and plaintive lead guitar melodies form a rustic framework for Sean Taylor's vox. Taylor's vocal aesthetic have a touch of grit, feels a bit busted up emotionally and has a reflective quality like he is recalling tough and not so tough times the entire time.
About the track, Taylor offers: “It’s about the first time I really left home. I had packed my car and moved across the country to the tiny town of Big Rapids, Michigan, where I didn't know anyone. I thought leaving was going to be this big cathartic moment, but it ended up feeling more like looking in a mirror in a lot of ways. Strangers reminded me of friends, scenery reminded me of home, and nothing really felt as far away as I thought It would in my head.”
Listening to Wingwalkers I felt a sense of 90's college rock radio too and of artists like Uncle Tupelo and Wilco, of folk stories told that feel like parables and stoke the flames of regret and reflection. The Angry Lisas are Sean Taylor on guitar and vocals, Cody French on guitar, Daniel Marcus on bass, and Jason Howe on drums.
-Robb Donker Curtius
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“I’ve always had a really hard time letting go of things. There are these moments that stick in my brain that are really hard for me to stop thinking about. I overanalyze everything, every detail.” For Sean Taylor, principal songwriter of Portland-based indie-rock outfit The Angry Lisas, there are many reasons why history will not let him go.
Regret, nostalgia, gratitude, and sorrow color the restless memories that he has collected over the last decade, memories that display themselves in bristling intensity on the band’s upcoming album, Slate Violet. The act of writing is not merely a passion for Taylor, but also a necessity; it is the sole means by which he is able to process and heal from those chapters of his past. “I need that process to do that for me. Cheap man’s therapy.”
Slate Violet pairs these instances with a rich palette of guitars and rolling drums that beg to be unleashed through car speakers while tearing across a moonlit highway. The Angry Lisas reflect not only pain, but also, and more importantly, the ecstatic relief of its release, a relief that comes in the form of riff-rock anthems that are as catchy as they are earnest. The result is an emotional atlas that tackles some of the most challenging moments in Taylor’s twenties with bold self-reflection, and most notably, humility, as he faces the reality that it is often our own faults that are the most difficult to accept.
About forthcoming single, Wingwalkers, Taylor says, “It’s about the first time I really left home. I had packed my car and moved across the country to the tiny town of Big Rapids, Michigan, where I didn't know anyone. I thought leaving was going to be this big cathartic moment, but it ended up feeling more like looking in a mirror in a lot of ways. Strangers reminded me of friends, scenery reminded me of home, and nothing really felt as far away as I thought It would in my head.”
It was this experience, which brought life to the "grass is always greener" and "you can't run away from your problems" clichés, that builds the backbone of the narrative in Wingwalkers, a country-tinged ballad of epic proportions.
While running away was meant to be some sort of cathartic moment for Taylor, he realized that the catharsis really only came in letting go - a feeling that is expertly conveyed in the first line of the chorus: "I need you now, like a car needs an icy road".
The forthcoming record was produced by Mike Sahm and The Angry Lisas, and engineered, mixed, and mastered by Mike Sahm at Dream Awake Audio in Portland, OR. It features Sean Taylor on guitar and vocals, Cody French on guitar, Daniel Marcus on bass, and Jason Howe on drums. The band has stayed busy with the release of two records since 2017, and a series of west coast dates that have landed him on stages supporting artists such as John Moreland, John Calvin Abney, and Chad Price of Drag the River.
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