Stalemate

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Welcome to the New Millennium. We’ve got it all: robots, flying cars, talking animals, and brand name theme parks located in craters on the moon. Could there be a better soundtrack to this hopeful future than the music of Stalemate? Culled from the finest ingredients hand-picked fresh from your favorite dusty .45s and late 90s brick-sized mp3 players, Stalemate captures the epic pomp and circumstance of the late, great rock n’ roll while romping happily in the fecal remains of all the subgenres that came after. What was it that Cole Porter said? “Make the new sound familiar, and the familiar sound new.” This, surely is Stalemate.



Rising from ground zero of some new teen beat movement in the thriving metropolis of Lincoln, RI, Stalemate is the brain-child of the childhood friends, guitarist Cory Waldron and pianist Matt DeMello. On the one hand, you have Waldron who is the calm and collected Yin to DeMello’s raging yang. With his soulful croon juxtaposed by schooled metallic shredding, he fits European Fantasy Speed Metal epics into tasteful melodic guitar solos that instantly demand “the guitar face” while delivering plenty of shock and awe. Think Ingmar Bergman directing a Michael Bay summer blockbuster. On the other hand you have DeMello, the raging righteous Mr. Hyde to Waldron’s well-healed Jekyll. Part suburban boy-prophet, part thoughtful post-De La Rocha generational town cryer, DeMello gathers all to the street corner to preach the word of the Brave New World. Equally willing to stand knee-deep in the shit with the rest of us as he is to intellectualize tragedy’s aftermath, DeMello lets all loose with thoughtful prose switching from a soft murmur to a tuneful howl.



All of this would fall flat without the supple and schooled rhythm section of Samuel Brunner and Kevin "Kdawg" Pereira. The former is (what would appear to be) a comely, soft spoken, gentle giant. Which is to say, until he has a bass solo. or his floating, hydrogen inflated harmonies soar above a subtle R&B arrangement. or when he swaps instruments mid-jam with Waldron or DeMello. Seemingly without straining effort, Brunner's unassuming grace can shame even the most ego-driven of frontmen. The Dave Grohl in this equation is the Bonhamesque "K-dawg"; an artist whose prowess is in his subtlety. Take for instance the probing, rumbling build Pereira builds behind Peter Gilli's excellent saxophone solo in "You're Not A Morning Person, Are You." An incredible crescendo from a consumate engineer of suspense that releases into the all-hell-breaks-loose of Waldron's rolling, metallic, guitar frills. Did I mention he's humble as apple pie? K-dawg is one lone levelheaded dude in this batch of too-hip-to-quit queens. and probably the guy in the band you could actually see yourself grabbing a beer with after the show. Switch hitting between the toe-tapping syncopated grooves of mid-70s funk and the fast paced chug of modern metal and hard rock, Brunner and Pereira remind us all that complex time changes and fierce rhythmic propulsion are not mutually exclusive terms.



So far this has been a lot of sloganeering for the individual talents, but what about the whole? The product? The very reason for being?



Packed with an arsenal of future hit singles, Stalemate is set to annihilate the competition with We Will Carry You Out To Sea, a genre flipping, thoroughly experimental, yet undeniably pop record set to unite the warring factions of rock music's tribal citizens. It fulfills the promise of the most bombastic, esoteric art rockers of the last quarter century, while still trafficking in that oh-so-important medium of the three minute nugget that has sustained popular culture since Buddy Holly wrote "Peggy Sue". There is something on this record to please everyone, and those who can't find anything are surely the very same sort who also share a dislike for The Muppets, Baby Animals, and Shirley Temple. As for the rest? Stalemate awaits you. New. and familiar.



-- Stephen Bailey, RI 2009