photo by lacy browne
From the onset, New York City trio Loveletter's slapping drums, ultra bottom heavy bass, guitar siren and Gabriella Zappia's vocal punk stance gives the alt rock heavy track "Prophets" amazing 80's / 90's punk touchstones. I love the sound that is at once alt rock heavy as it is punk raw and I couldn't help but think of the artful mayhem of an iconic past, an amalgam of Babes In Toyland, Buzzcocks, The Pretenders (and some others). Feel free to think of your own personal punk rock touchstones as long as they are vibrant, subversively cool and artfully badass.
"Prophets" is from the band's EP "Testament" out on June 7. Songwriter/guitarist/singer Gabriella Zappia shares:
“Every song on this EP is about resilience in its different forms, but ‘Prophets’ in particular focuses on rebirth, awakening, and lust. Ask yourself, ‘beware false prophets’ or surrender and fucking go for it?”
LINER NOTES (bracketed - excerpts):
"Prophets" is from the band's EP "Testament" out on June 7. Songwriter/guitarist/singer Gabriella Zappia shares:
“Every song on this EP is about resilience in its different forms, but ‘Prophets’ in particular focuses on rebirth, awakening, and lust. Ask yourself, ‘beware false prophets’ or surrender and fucking go for it?”
LINER NOTES (bracketed - excerpts):
[Songwriter/guitarist/singer Gabriella Zappia grew up in a tiny, swampy town in southeast Texas on the border of Louisiana, where it’s fairly easy for a person to get stuck — literally and metaphorically. Her father’s jazz and classical records were some of Zappia’s earliest exposures to music, but her world was upended when her older sisters brought home SST and Sub Pop catalogs. She started writing songs as a means of escape and has been plotting a global course ever since.
[Zappia lived in Pittsburgh, Rome, and London before settling in New York City in the early 2000s. She played in The Flesh, then in L'Rationale with Anthony Roman (Radio 4). After a long break, she formed Råtta with another songwriter, but when the 2020 pandemic hit, it unknowingly ushered in a particularly harrowing two years for Zappia.]
[Zappia lived in Pittsburgh, Rome, and London before settling in New York City in the early 2000s. She played in The Flesh, then in L'Rationale with Anthony Roman (Radio 4). After a long break, she formed Råtta with another songwriter, but when the 2020 pandemic hit, it unknowingly ushered in a particularly harrowing two years for Zappia.]
[“I was falling apart on many levels,” she says. Then in early 2022, “I felt it was time to resurface. I was still in love with New York City. We'd stood by each other, and I wanted to send a transmission out in the darkness: ‘I'm still here—where the fuck are you?’” She found a creative cohort in bassist Dennie Gray, an Alabama transplant who played in various rock bands in Birmingham, Louisville, Kentucky, and NYC throughout the ’90s and ’00s, and splits her time between Loveletter and Dementa. In the summer of 2022, they welcomed drummer Melissa Houston, who’s shared bills with everyone from Death Valley Girls to Wayne Kramer.]
[After playing a handful of sweaty, unbridled shows — including opening spots for Bat Fangs and Frightwig — Loveletter recorded the Testament EP with veteran producer Martin Bisi (Sonic Youth, Swans, Boredoms) in December 2023. Each song emerges from a shadowy corner, reflecting the kind of resiliency that NYC imparts on its people.]
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://loveletter1.bandcamp.com/album/testament
https://www.instagram.com/loveletterband/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTu5aL8ry9jiA_TzoXFjffQ
Fans of post-punk, ’90s alt-rock, and no-wave have a new crush in the New York City trio Loveletter. The band’s bristling kinetic energy serves the kind of attitude that fans of Kim Gordon, Mudhoney, and A Place to Bury Strangers will immediately recognize.
Songwriter/guitarist/singer Gabriella Zappia grew up in a tiny, swampy town in southeast Texas on the border of Louisiana, where it’s fairly easy for a person to get stuck — literally and metaphorically. Her father’s jazz and classical records were some of Zappia’s earliest exposures to music, but her world was upended when her older sisters brought home SST and Sub Pop catalogs. She started writing songs as a means of escape and has been plotting a global course ever since.
Loveletter, alt rock, New York City, punk trio, "Prophets", 80's / 90's sonic touchstones, new EP "Testament", songwriter / guitarist Gabriella Zappia, bassist Dennie Gray, drummer Melissa Houston,
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