AMAZING BABY
Rewild
(Shangri-La
Music; June 23rd, 2009)
“…full-bodied
psych-pop…” – Nylon, April
2009
“Amazing
Baby…represent a sort of Not New York group of inside-outsiders who
embrace the rejection of the city…Amazing Baby’s Infinite Fucking Cross EP and the album
they’re recording are psychedelic and spacey, but they’re also
bulky, acerbic…” – The
Fader, Jan/Feb 2009
It’s hard to describe Brooklyn’s Amazing
Baby without using the word “amazing,” because
ultimately, that’s what they are. A five-piece whose sum parts
equal a very incredible whole, Amazing
Baby have created an album that dazzles and surprises, destined
to find a place on your shelf nestled amongst your favorite records. The
album is titled Rewild,
and to call it amazing seems a bit redundant, but upon one listen, you’d
be hard-pressed not to agree.
Amazing Baby has quickly become one of New York City’s most talked-about new
bands, thanks to their free, self-released EP, The Infinite Fucking Cross. Recorded in their
bedrooms, the EP showed tremendous promise, containing the sort of
dizzying rock songs that sound soaked in the California
sun before being cranked through the filter of New York City’s urban
sprawl. Roan and O’Connor, who met during a two week
stint at a ringtone company, knew they were on to something, and quickly
assembled the talents of guitarist Rob
Laakso, bassist Don Devore and
drummer Matt Abeysekera.
Shows in the U.S., U.K., and Europe
followed, and suddenly, Amazing Baby had
become a fierce live band whose transcendent energy and ability to rip into one
hell of a guitar solo quickly won them fans around the world. And this
was before they had recorded a proper debut album.
Now that record
is here, and it brilliantly delivers on the promise showed by their EP. Rewild marries
the subtleties of so many influences – The Who, Elvis Costello, Black
Sabbath, The Stone Roses, Frank Zappa, the Happy Mondays, among them –
and boils them down into one head-turning slice of rock and roll
exuberance. Produced by the band and their engineer Claudius
Mittendorfer, with additional production prowess by John Hill
(Santigold), Rewild is
the product of love and sustaining the loss of it, a car crash, a
fourteen-piece orchestra, and the desire to make sense of – or escape
– the band’s surroundings. Spanning everything from the
depths metal to the high sighs of glam rock to the perfect melodies of sugary
pop, Rewild exudes
both a primal energy and precisely-honed choruses. From the opening
orchestral attack of “Bayonets” to
the sun-filled, dub-step shimmer of “Roverfrenz,” to
the stomp and strut of “Kankra” and
the epic gauze of “The
Narwahl,” Rewild is one of the most striking debuts of 2009.
