Queen City Heist
Queen City Heist – Music Review
Queen City Heist…I gotta admit, everything from researching the band to listening to the actual music has been a grin-inducing pleasure…
I pushed play on the new album from Queen City Heist and I opened up the social pages as I would normally do. The album starts with “Summer Time Affair” – an explosive pop-meets-soul track. That’s where it starts of course…and now my interest has already be roused…I check into where they’re from, which is Clarksville, TN, USA.
So…we can assume they come by their sound honestly!
What pulled me in right away…was a wicked bass-line you can hear in “King Of The Castle,” it was so full of life, tone and bounce that it started me looking into the official roster for the band…let’s see here…
This is where it gets a little fun and I have to take a quick time out to poke at our new friends in Queen City Heist…
When you look them up on Facebook…there’s four official members listed…only one or two lines above where it states clearly that Queen City Heist is a 5-piece band. As the FIRST piece to hook me in, the bassist, wasn’t listed along with the other four members up top…I assumed they had to be telling the truth about being a 5-piece. Reading on further into their bio, we learn that this bass was provided via Matt Power’s fantastic work. There’s five people in their profile photo on Facebook…and so the plot thickened…
Many of these tunes become stripped down versions, acoustically driven vehicles to showcase Skye Mangrum’s voice that don’t necessarily require anything other than the one guitar…so in fairness to the roster, it makes sense that he might be a guest star right now…watch for Matt to crack this line-up on the social pages officially one day I’d say…he’s essential on “King Of The Castle” and certainly again on “Blooming Grove Rd.”
Skye Mangrum of course, is the dominant piece of Queen City Heist and for many great reasons. There’s zero argument to made regarding her talent as a singer/songwriter – she’s incredible. With tremendous skill for unique and beautiful vocal melodies, she attacks even the most basic, acoustic-only tracks like she’s singing from the very bottom of her toes and gives you everything she has on every track. She comes through silky-smooth to open the album with “Summer Time Affair,” a track that not only does a great job starting up the disc with energy, but also gives off an incredible “live” atmosphere. It’s a song you can visualize them starting a show with and easily picture it happening on-stage in your head. It’s truly a fantastic opening that really highlights all the players involved – just have a listen to how much ass Mr. Bill McDonald is KICKING over there on the drumset! Jason Mangrum also lays down a wicked set of keys spread wildly over this excellent introduction to QCH.
That live feeling…whether it’s a full-band set up like “Send Your Love” or leaving Skye to herself like on “Let Me Love You’’ – this album plays like a warm invitation to be in the front row of a Queen City Heist concert.
And to be fair…Skye might not necessarily be alone as much as it might seem throughout the album. Much of the lead guitar’s beautiful inventions come from Jacob Morrison as well trading off the lead with Skye…so though many of the acoustically driven tracks sound like they might be Skye on her own…you never know!
What can I say? It’s just not common practice for anyone to say “Hello my name is, and I’m about to play the guitar on this one…” before a track begins…
But in this acoustic vein – have yourself a multiple listen to “Runaway,” one of the most beautiful songs of my year and certainly on this album. You can hear a sharp distance between the production on a track like this and the following track – the single-worthy “Blooming Grove Rd,” but again…this is where it gets extremely interesting to me…
You see…what I LOVE about their BIG songs like “Blooming Grove Rd.” or “Send Your Love” is just how natural they’ve come out…how truly “at home” this band seems to be in their grooves. So in many ways – I’m almost surprised at how authentic they still manage to sound in songs like “Lies, Lies, Lies,” or the gorgeous “Runaway” track. It’s almost like one of these sounds should sound more forced than the other, but Queen City Heist manages to adapt and change and stay incredibly REAL no matter what the style of their song. There’s an immense amount of talent here and the promising signs of some even better things to come in the future down the road for this band.
Yep. After a ton of time listening to this rhythmic and exciting crew – I can definitely conclude that all the right pieces are here; great players, great singing, great songwriting, resulting in some really incredible tracks more than worth a listen. Nearly every song on their list at their official homepage possesses a massive hit count and after only a single spin of their music you’ll certainly understand why on your own.
Beautifully catchy.
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