{"id":487189,"date":"2019-06-19T10:08:30","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T16:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=849809"},"modified":"2019-06-19T10:08:30","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T16:08:30","slug":"song-you-need-to-know-sheer-mag-blood-from-a-stone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/music-news\/song-you-need-to-know-sheer-mag-blood-from-a-stone\/","title":{"rendered":"Song You Need to Know: Sheer Mag, \u2018Blood From a Stone\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Before today, Sheer Mag had released less than 25 songs, but their sound is still instantly recognizable. Less than 10 seconds into the Philadelphia rockers\u2019 new single \u2014 the first track released from their upcoming second LP A Distant Call<\/em> \u2014 as vocalist Tina Halladay enters, singing \u201cAll damn day I been waiting on line\u201d in her trademark gritty belt over a lean, badass riff, you know exactly who you\u2019re hearing.<\/p>\n

From the time of their first EP<\/a> in 2014, Sheer Mag\u2019s aesthetic has been laser-focused: retro-minded, R&B-inflected pop filtered through a street-tough punk-meets-metal lens. In a 2017 Rolling Stone<\/em> interview<\/a>, the band\u2019s lead guitarist, Kyle Seely, and his brother, bassist Hart, cited early influences including tech-metal and math rock but stressed that the sturdiness of the tunes was their main priority. \u201cFor me, the fun thing is just making great pop songs, basically,\u201d Kyle said.<\/p>\n

That devotion to their craft has made the majority of the band\u2019s output to date \u2014 three EPs, later compiled into an anthology<\/a>, and 2017\u2019s outstanding Need to Feel Your Love<\/em><\/a> \u2014 feel unusually timeless. With its narrative of \u201chard luck living,\u201d detailing financial hardship on the heels of a romantic one, and compact structure, \u201cBlood From a Stone\u201d is another readymade anthem from a band that seems incapable of writing a song that doesn\u2019t fit that description.<\/p>\n

And, also like many Sheer Mag songs, the track \u2014 which comes bundled with a lyric video featuring grainy footage of Halladay \u2014 crams an uncanny amount of ear candy into its brief running time: a series of busy yet hooky riffs from Kyle, tasty clean-toned background guitar lines, a yearning chorus (\u201cBut I won\u2019t cry \/ Cuz I should have known \/ That to get some comfort from your aching heart \/ Is blood from a stone\u201d), a brief synth cameo and a couple of choice howls from Halladay. Like the best minimalists in any medium, Sheer Mag never skimp on the details.<\/p>\n

A Distant Call<\/em> is out August 23rd via the band\u2019s own Wilsuns RC label and is available for preorder<\/a> now. Sheer Mag will be on tour for much of the summer and fall.<\/p>\n

Sheer Mag tour dates<\/strong>
June 22 \u2013 Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe Live
June 24 \u2013 Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile
June 25 \u2013 Olympia, WA @ Capitol Theater
June 26 \u2013 Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Theater
June 28 \u2013 Reno, NV @ Holland Project
June 29 \u2013 Las Vegas, NV @ American Legion Hall
June 30 \u2013 Santa Ana, CA @ Observatory
July 2 \u2013 Los Angeles, CA @ Zebulon
July 3 \u2013 San Diego, CA @ Irenic
July 5 \u2013 Fresno, CA @ Strummers
July 6, July 7 \u2013 Oakland, CA @ Burger Boogaloo
August 30 \u2013 Kingston, NY @ BSP Kingston
August 31 \u2013 Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground
September 1 \u2013 Montreal, QC @ La Sala Rossa
September 3 \u2013 Toronto, ON @ Lee\u2019s Palace
September 4 \u2013 Detroit, MI @ Deluxx Fluxx
September 5 \u2013 Columbus, OH @ Ace of Cups
September 6 \u2013 Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
September 7 \u2013 Madison, WI @ The Terrace at UW@Madison
September 8 \u2013 Minneapolis, MN @ Turf Club
September 9 \u2013 Des Moines, IA @ Vaudeville Mews
September 10 \u2013 Omaha, NE @ The Slowdown
September 12 \u2013 Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge
September 13 \u2013 Salt Lake City, UT @ Diabolical Records
September 14 \u2013 Boise, ID @ The Olympic
September 16 \u2013 Vancouver, BC @ The Biltmore
September 21 \u2013 San Jose, CA @ The Ritz
September 22 \u2013 Los Angeles, CA @ The Teragram Ballroom
September 24 \u2013 Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress
September 26 \u2013 Austin, TX @ Barracuda
September 27 \u2013 San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger
September 28 \u2013 Houston, TX @ The Satellite
September 29 \u2013 New Orleans, LA @ Santo\u2019s
October 1 \u2013 Birmingham, AL @ Saturn
October 2 \u2013 Atlanta, GA @ 529 Club
October 3 \u2013 Asheville, NC @ The Mothlight
October 4 \u2013 Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall
October 5 \u2013 Washington, DC @ The Black Cat
October 9 \u2013 Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere
October 11 \u2013 Boston, MA @ The Sinclair
October 25 \u2013 Amsterdam, NL @ London Calling Festival
October 26 \u2013 Aarhus, DEN @ Tape
October 27 \u2013 Copenhagen, DEN @ Loppen
October 29 \u2013 Hamburg, DE @ Molotow
October 30 \u2013 Berlin, DE @ Zukunft am Ostkreuz
November 2 \u2013 London, UK @ Mirrors Festival
November 4 \u2013 Manchester, UK @ Yes
November 5 \u2013 Dublin, IR @ Grand Social
November 6 \u2013 Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
November 8 \u2013 Kortrijk, BE @ Sonic City 2019
November 9 \u2013 Benidorm, ESP @ Primavera 20th Aniv, Weekender<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before today, Sheer Mag had released less than 25 songs, but their sound is still instantly recognizable. Less than 10 seconds into the Philadelphia rockers\u2019 new single \u2014 the first track released from their upcoming second LP A Distant Call \u2014 as vocalist Tina Halladay enters, singing \u201cAll damn day I been waiting on line\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-487189","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-21 11:41:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KQZR - The Reel","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}