Posted: by The Editor
2022 was a big year for both AZ’s Celebration Guns and CO’s A Place for Owls, two of the rising stars in today’s emo landscape. Celebration Guns dropped their third, and best, EP Midlife Vices, and A Place for Owls released their self-titled debut LP. To celebrate, the bands are embarking on a tour together, beginning tomorrow in Celebration Guns’ native Phoenix (ending, appropriately, in Denver, A Place for Owls’ hometown).
To make things even better, the bands collaborated on a split EP, too. Celebration Guns’ mathier tendencies, on display on side one, work well in tandem with A Place for Owls’ more indie rock leanings on side two. Both bands contribute two songs, and all four tracks absolutely whip. If their week-long tour is coming anywhere near you, you won’t want to miss it.
On “Whatever Gets You Through the Day,” Celebration Guns’ first song on the split, vocalist/guitarist Justin Weir shares that it’s “a happy song about embracing your mortality. A healthy relationship with the inevitability of death can make the expectations of life seem less overwhelming, but can also become a bit of a nihilistic worldview. This might be one of our poppiest and listener-friendly songs musically, so it seems appropriate we’d turn it into a real downer with the lyrics.” Ben Sooy, vocalist/guitarist of A Place for Owls, discusses the genesis of “17/24/33,” noting, “I am in my 30s now, and I’ve been writing songs and playing guitar since I was a teenager. Most of the songs I’ve written no one will ever hear, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. A lot of them were bad, but I needed to write them at the time to work something out internally. The songs provided some stability when I feel unstable, the same way a good friend does.” These songs don’t just work as sonic partners, but thematic ones, too, tackling aging in a changing world. But Ben’s right–they make things feel a little steadier somehow.
Listen to the split below, and catch the two on tour:
4/13 Phoenix, AZ @ The Rebel Lounge
4/14 Los Vegas, NV @ Soul Belly BBQ
4/15 Pomona, CA @ Cafe Con Libros
4/16 Sacramento, CA @ The Starlet Room
4/17 Portland, CA @ The Swan Dive
4/18 Seattle, WA @ Bad Bar
4/19 Boise, ID @ Mad Swede Brew Hall
4/20 Salt Lake City, UT @ Wild Pepper
4/21 Denver, CO @ Moe’s BBQ Englewood
The split will be out tomorrow of Really Rad Records.
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Zac Djamoos | @gr8whitebison
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