So much to love here, from the artful crazy opening sensation like something imploding, the bloodletting lyrics and the ever changing emotional indie rock diorama that follows and creates imagery in your head.
- Robb Donker Curtius
LINER NOTES (excerpted / bracketed):
[ON TOUR RIGHT NOW
indierockpunk from Portland, OR and Santa Cruz, CA
‘Bonfante Gardens Forever’ debut album out now!!]
indierockpunk from Portland, OR and Santa Cruz, CA
‘Bonfante Gardens Forever’ debut album out now!!]
[It’s the feeling you get when your hometown is literally on fire. It’s watching East of Eden and realizing that nothing in the Salinas River Valley looks remotely like that world anymore. It’s your friend's cousin sharing his deep-state conspiracy on what he thinks is really under the Antarctic ice sheet. It’s a new building downtown that, despite being labeled affordable, you could never afford. It’s a Santa Cruz sticker on a six-figure car.]
[These are some of the scenarios that fly around Bonfante Gardens Forever, the debut album from Portland, OR indie-punk band The Summerlands. Formed in 2022 initially as a solo project for frontman Grant Simmons (who went by ‘Grant Summerland’ at the time), The Summerlands is now a robust four-person outfit that blends indie rock, punk, emo, and folk sensibilities. Following their first releases of the Unnatural History EP(2023) and Unnatural History II EP (2024), the power pop-heavy Bonfante Gardens Forever marks a shift for the band into a more mature style.]
[These are some of the scenarios that fly around Bonfante Gardens Forever, the debut album from Portland, OR indie-punk band The Summerlands. Formed in 2022 initially as a solo project for frontman Grant Simmons (who went by ‘Grant Summerland’ at the time), The Summerlands is now a robust four-person outfit that blends indie rock, punk, emo, and folk sensibilities. Following their first releases of the Unnatural History EP(2023) and Unnatural History II EP (2024), the power pop-heavy Bonfante Gardens Forever marks a shift for the band into a more mature style.]
LYRICS:
And I was crying in the yard
Saying these things aren't supposed to be
And you were sending your regards
From across the mountain sea
And I'm sick of nostalgia
I'm sick of the way it cheapens me
And you were sending your regards
From across the mountain sea
Saw grass and street lamps
Peppering the street, oh it's springtime
Saw grass and street lamps
Peppering the street, oh it's springtime
Were not going to get unscathed from this
Were not going to get unscathed from this oh no
Were not going to get unscathed from this
Were not going to get unscathed from this oh no
And home is here and
The hearts in the stratosphere
The hearts in the stratosphere
And i was crying in the yard
Saying these things aren't supposed to be
And you were sending your regards
From across the mountain sea
And i'm sick of nostalgia
I'm sick of the way it cheapens me
An you were sending your regards
+
From across the mountain sea
Black pool, big fence
It's springtime
written by Grant Simmons
The Chicken Wheel will take you to the AP Go Fund Me- and any amount is so appreciated!
https://www.instagram.com/the_summerlands
And you were sending your regards
From across the mountain sea
And I'm sick of nostalgia
I'm sick of the way it cheapens me
And you were sending your regards
From across the mountain sea
Saw grass and street lamps
Peppering the street, oh it's springtime
Saw grass and street lamps
Peppering the street, oh it's springtime
Were not going to get unscathed from this
Were not going to get unscathed from this oh no
Were not going to get unscathed from this
Were not going to get unscathed from this oh no
And home is here and
The hearts in the stratosphere
The hearts in the stratosphere
And i was crying in the yard
Saying these things aren't supposed to be
And you were sending your regards
From across the mountain sea
And i'm sick of nostalgia
I'm sick of the way it cheapens me
An you were sending your regards
+
From across the mountain sea
Black pool, big fence
It's springtime
written by Grant Simmons
The Chicken Wheel will take you to the AP Go Fund Me- and any amount is so appreciated!
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://www.instagram.com/the_summerlands
https://www.facebook.com/grantsummerland
It’s the feeling you get when your hometown is literally on fire. It’s watching East of Eden and realizing that nothing in the Salinas River Valley looks remotely like that world anymore. It’s your friend's cousin sharing his deep-state conspiracy on what he thinks is really under the Antarctic ice sheet. It’s a new building downtown that, despite being labeled affordable, you could never afford. It’s a Santa Cruz sticker on a six-figure car.
These are some of the scenarios that fly around Bonfante Gardens Forever, the debut album from Portland, OR indie-punk band The Summerlands. Formed in 2022 initially as a solo project for frontman Grant Simmons (who went by ‘Grant Summerland’ at the time), The Summerlands is now a robust four-person outfit that blends indie rock, punk, emo, and folk sensibilities. Following their first releases of the Unnatural History EP(2023) and Unnatural History II EP (2024), the power pop-heavy Bonfante Gardens Forever marks a shift for the band into a more mature style.
Originally conceived when Simmons was evacuated during the 2020 CZU Fire in his hometown of Santa Cruz, CA, Bonfante Gardens Forever is a loose concept album that focuses on Northern California, detailing the sometimes violent changes the area has undergone during the past decade: the creep of Silicon Valley culture into the town, climate change, and gentrification (along with its good buddy, displacement). The album is clear to note that Portland, OR is not exempt from these forces either.
Simmons is not shy about his influences, naming two major works as the primary inspirations for this album: Titus Andronicus's The Monitor — a seminal indie-punk album — and Mark Arax's nonfiction work The Dreamt Land, a book that details California's complex and sometimes outright evil history with water and land. Arax himself contributes spoken word passages to the album taken from said book, done in the style of The Monitor's spoken word passages. Simmons considers that album one of the best punk records of all time, stating, "I wanted to make my own version of The Monitor." On paper, Bonfante Gardens Forever doesn't seem to have much in common with the 2010 album, but there are brief flashes: the anthemic riff on the back half of "Sellwood Bridge Blues" and the seven-minute-long epic "SS Palo Alto," Simmons’ musing on a ship designed for World War I warfare but never actually used, only to sit off a beach as a historical tourist attraction.
An album that is hyperaware of history, Simmons even modeled the press photos for this album after the photos Dean McHenry used to announce the opening of the University of Santa Cruz, California in Time Magazine in 1962. Also giving a nod to history, the album’s cover art is a collage of historical photos of the west coast mixed with childhood photos of all four band members. In terms of the actual music, a whole range of musical influences make themselves present, such as skate punk acts and early Modest Mouse fused together on ‘Heart in the Stratosphere’; early emo acts like Slint and American Football on ‘The Thing You Live For’; the poppier side of Bruce Springsteen on ‘A National Feeling’; and straight hardcore bands such as Santa Cruz’s own DRAIN on the closing part of intro track ‘The Award Show.’
The result is an album that uses a wide soundscape to confront some disquieting questions:
How do you say goodbye to a hometown you grew up in but simply can not afford to live in as an adult? What can be done about the climate effects on the west coast, if anything? Do we simply get used to it? How does one become an adult in a world where so many of the markers of adulthood - home ownership, establishing oneself in a community, a stable career - are rapidly disappearing from American life? The answers aren’t so clear but on “The Henrys’, Simmons comes to something like an answer concluding that inaction is not an option. In other words: “The future is deliberate, I run towards it.”
It’s the feeling you get when your hometown is literally on fire. It’s watching East of Eden and realizing that nothing in the Salinas River Valley looks remotely like that world anymore. It’s your friend's cousin sharing his deep-state conspiracy on what he thinks is really under the Antarctic ice sheet. It’s a new building downtown that, despite being labeled affordable, you could never afford. It’s a Santa Cruz sticker on a six-figure car.
These are some of the scenarios that fly around Bonfante Gardens Forever, the debut album from Portland, OR indie-punk band The Summerlands. Formed in 2022 initially as a solo project for frontman Grant Simmons (who went by ‘Grant Summerland’ at the time), The Summerlands is now a robust four-person outfit that blends indie rock, punk, emo, and folk sensibilities. Following their first releases of the Unnatural History EP(2023) and Unnatural History II EP (2024), the power pop-heavy Bonfante Gardens Forever marks a shift for the band into a more mature style.
Originally conceived when Simmons was evacuated during the 2020 CZU Fire in his hometown of Santa Cruz, CA, Bonfante Gardens Forever is a loose concept album that focuses on Northern California, detailing the sometimes violent changes the area has undergone during the past decade: the creep of Silicon Valley culture into the town, climate change, and gentrification (along with its good buddy, displacement). The album is clear to note that Portland, OR is not exempt from these forces either.
Simmons is not shy about his influences, naming two major works as the primary inspirations for this album: Titus Andronicus's The Monitor — a seminal indie-punk album — and Mark Arax's nonfiction work The Dreamt Land, a book that details California's complex and sometimes outright evil history with water and land. Arax himself contributes spoken word passages to the album taken from said book, done in the style of The Monitor's spoken word passages. Simmons considers that album one of the best punk records of all time, stating, "I wanted to make my own version of The Monitor." On paper, Bonfante Gardens Forever doesn't seem to have much in common with the 2010 album, but there are brief flashes: the anthemic riff on the back half of "Sellwood Bridge Blues" and the seven-minute-long epic "SS Palo Alto," Simmons’ musing on a ship designed for World War I warfare but never actually used, only to sit off a beach as a historical tourist attraction.
An album that is hyperaware of history, Simmons even modeled the press photos for this album after the photos Dean McHenry used to announce the opening of the University of Santa Cruz, California in Time Magazine in 1962. Also giving a nod to history, the album’s cover art is a collage of historical photos of the west coast mixed with childhood photos of all four band members. In terms of the actual music, a whole range of musical influences make themselves present, such as skate punk acts and early Modest Mouse fused together on ‘Heart in the Stratosphere’; early emo acts like Slint and American Football on ‘The Thing You Live For’; the poppier side of Bruce Springsteen on ‘A National Feeling’; and straight hardcore bands such as Santa Cruz’s own DRAIN on the closing part of intro track ‘The Award Show.’
The result is an album that uses a wide soundscape to confront some disquieting questions:
How do you say goodbye to a hometown you grew up in but simply can not afford to live in as an adult? What can be done about the climate effects on the west coast, if anything? Do we simply get used to it? How does one become an adult in a world where so many of the markers of adulthood - home ownership, establishing oneself in a community, a stable career - are rapidly disappearing from American life? The answers aren’t so clear but on “The Henrys’, Simmons comes to something like an answer concluding that inaction is not an option. In other words: “The future is deliberate, I run towards it.”
The Summerlands, indie rock, art punk, art rock, progressive emo, prog rock, shifting abstractions, lyrical bloodletting, "Heart in the Stratosphere" (Official Video), debut album ‘Bonfante Gardens Forever’,
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