Ears Wide Open: Heavenward
Kevin Bronson on
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Heavenward is the brainchild of Kamtin Mohager (The Chain Gang of 1974, ex-Teenage Wrist), dishing out sheets of muscular, melodic noise and aggression, ’90s style. If your ’90s included bands like Catherine Wheel, Chapterhouse and Bush, that is.
Mohager announced in April that Heavenward’s debut full-legnth, “Pyrophonics,” would be out June 16 via his own Fever Ltd. Lead single “Gasoline” (a ’90s song title if ever there was one) is fueled by cascading guitars and yearning vocals, as the singer-guitarist “can’t make sense of certain things inside my head.”
The album was made with collaborators including ex-Teenage Wrist bandmate Marshall Gallagher, Austin Hayman (Dear Boy) and Mike Robinson (Blame My Youth), with Zach Tuch (Zulu, Dare, Initiate) handling all phases of production.
“The album is about my acknowledgement of my personal struggles, and for lack of a better term, my ‘demons,’” he says. “In a not-so-healthy way, accepting the darkness within and continuing to live your life. Possibly even embracing them. This is why I decided to call the album ‘Pyrophonics.’ Simply put, it’s a destructive language for yourself.”
Mohager launched Heavenward during the pandemic with the shoegaze anthem “Hole.” The three-song EP, “Staircase Music,” released in early 2022, includes album tracks “Supernova” and “Wish.”
||| Stream: “Gasoline,” “Supernova” and “Wish”
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