Nada Mucho

Promote This: Beatrix Sky, Winchester Rebels & Wyatt Olney

Posted by Nada Staff May 20th, 2016 1 Comment »

Promote This is a long-running NadaMucho.com feature wherein we write about songs and videos by emerging and unsigned bands. This installment includes Beatrix Sky, Winchester Rebels, and Wyatt Olney & The Wreckage.

Beatrix Sky – “FTW”

“One time after a shitty break up, I got way too high and sat on my porch thinking about all the innumerable things that had gone wrong.” “FTW” feels a lot like that. It has the same kind of spaced-out fuzziness and the same clunky, inelegant intensity. Lines like “and it doesn’t seem like you even cared at all/ you won’t bother to even think of me at all” aren’t particularly profound but their raw emotionalism reads like a diary entry or texts that you never end up sending.

The video finds Olympia artist Beatrix Sky sprawled in a field, sluggishly interacting with furniture, and bathing. It’s lovely and languid and the backdrop of a field and trees seems strangely appropriate for the glitchy, droning instrumental. It could stand to be a bit more dynamic, but that’s life I guess. Sometimes you just end up stoned on your porch (or in your bath) crying and wondering why boys suck so much. – Sam Chapman

Winchester Rebels –”Ropes“

Oh man. Perhaps their parents played Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” to often while they laid in their cribs looking up at a Dukes of Hazard mobile? It’s the only explanation for a band to create well-produced but ultimately derivative hard rock schlock like Santa Barbara band Winchester Rebels. It’s not all bad – “Ropes” has some cool guitar parts that break up the ridiculous lyrics – but I just couldn’t force myself to play a second song. When their band doesn’t take off these guys should consider opening a Kid Rock museum or something instead. – Tim Basaraba

Wyatt Olney & The Wreckage – “Save Me” and “Die Young”

One of the two singles off Wyatt Olney & The Wreckage’s (pictured above) debut full-length Dark Futures, “Save Me” is a song with a lot of potential. The opening guitar riff is squiggly and fun, Olney’s voice is (at the risk of offending anybody’s rock sensibilities) almost pretty, and The Wreckage chug along with wink-wink-nudge-nudge hardcore posturing. I came in expecting tired dad-rock and ended up getting a pretty fun rock song. But even with some successful elements, “Save Me” never seems to latch onto something great. Olney’s vocals, which should be the spear point of the whole operation, seem a little lost in the mix. Lyrically, it treads a lot of pretty tired themes. It’s another song about how the speaker needs to be “saved” (via love, sex, or passionless makeout sesh) from “what I’ve become.” Lyric novelty obviously isn’t the highest priority in a rock song, but when I start mentally drawing Evanescence parallels, I get worried.

“Die Young” is the other single off Dark Futures and honestly it’s a much better showcase of what WOTW can do. There’s still some pretty hokey songwriting happening, but it comes off as awkwardly sweet instead of trite. Olney’s voice is incredibly well-suited to the intimate format of rock ballad, and the band is as solid as ever. When they’re not trying to be Hard Rockers, you get a much better sense of who they really are- a bunch of dudes playing fun rock songs. And that’s not a bad thing to be. – Sam Chapman