Californian band Stitched Up Heart formed initially in 2010, but only came to my attention in October 2015 after being signed to Another Century Records. The video for the track “Finally Free” appeared in the “recommended” section of my YouTube page and when I checked it out I was instantly hooked. I bought the track from Amazon and immediately started playing it on the NI Rocks Shows on Rock Radio NI. When the band launched their Pledgemusic campaign for their debut album “Never Alone” I had no hesitation in pre-ordering it. The second release from the album was "Monster” which was made available to pledgers in April and has also been played quite a bit on the NI Rocks Shows. The album “Never Alone” was officially released on 17th June by Another Century Records.
Normally the album recommendations I post relate to releases that have been sent to us for airplay; but sometimes I post one for an album I’ve bought simply because I think other people should check out the band! This is one of those posts. There are a lot of younger, new generation (or whatever label you wish to apply) bands out there that I really don’t get excited about, but there are others where the vocals and music really tick the boxes and Stitched Up Heart are one of those bands. (Another, would be English band Skarlett Riot, whose lead singer was a guest on the Show recently - http://www.rockradioni.co.uk/interviews/2609-ni-rocks-interview-with-skarlett-from-skarlett-riot.html ).
Stitched Up Heart are Alecia “Mixi” Demner on lead vocals, Merrit Alfero on lead guitar, Randy Mathias on bass and James Decker on drums. The band seem to be touring almost constantly, though unfortunately only in the USA. For more information and all the social media links check out http://stitchedupheart.org/
I’ve only had a chance to play the album through in full twice since downloading it from the Pledgemusic site yesterday, but it definitely lives up to the expectations raised by “Finally Free” and “Monster”. There are nine more tracks on the album – I haven’t been able to identify any specific favourites so far, but that just means that all are equally good!
About “NI Rocks Recommends”
The simple idea behind “NI Rocks Recommends” is normally to acknowledge and promote some of the great music being submitted to Rock Radio NI. I'll not be giving marks or ratings or analyzing the tracks in great detail; just telling you something about the artist and the album. It’s a personal recommendation to go check something out, not a traditional “review”!
My musical tastes cover most things rock; from the not too melodic to the not too heavy. The albums that I’ll be recommending are usually those that that you’ll be hearing tracks from on my shows on Rock Radio NI.
Check out NI Rocks on Facebook – www.facebook.com/NIRocks or Twitter - www.twitter.com/NIrelandRocks