A Pair of Leap Day Releases from Bird Hotel & Feeny

New Brunswick Release Day

It's February 29th, so happy birthday to all of you folks who only get to celebrate for real every four years. It's also the birthday of a pair of EPs from New Brunswick bands.

Bird Hotel, A Death in the Family

A Death in the Family is the second EP from New Brunswick metal-influenced punk band Bird Hotel. It opens with "Ira," which after a quiet first few seconds accelerates to breakneck pace.  "Ira" and all three songs on the EP feature an artery-popping vocal delivery and some seriously face-melting lead guitar. The set-closer, the six-minute "Endless," is a song that swerves between head-banging metal and melodic rock and features guest vocals from Steve Kelly of Man Dancing.
Everything was recorded by the very busy Max Rauch.

You can grab A Death in the Family over at Bird Hotel's Bandcamp page.

Feeny, No Beauty in Routine

New Brunswick trio, Feeny, are a pop-punk trio who met and formed at a party sometime in 2014. Since then, they've gigged tirelessly from Montreal's Pouzzafest to tours that took them throughout their home base in Central Jersey and up and down the East Coast. The culmination of much of that hard work is No Beauty in Routine.

The big guitar chords and up-front vocals on No Beauty in Routine place Feeny squarely in the venerable New Brunswick, NJ pop-punk tradition. There are a few twists and turns, however. The band's post-rock influences shine through on the title track, "Spoilation," and "Patience and Paranoia." "The Haymarket Affair" almost sounds like a louder version of Death Cab For Cutie. Though, No Beauty in Routine also features its share of fist-pumping moments of pop-punk. Produced, mixed, and mastered by Jesse Cannon and Mike Oettinger at Cannon Found Station in Union City, No Beauty in Routine is available as a Name Your Price download over at Feeny's Bandcamp page.

Not The Bees! / City Limits Split 7". Playing Asbury Lanes TONIGHT.

EP Review / Show Preview

Tonight, Asbury Lanes will be hosting an evening of pop punk headlined by Oklahoma City's Red City Radio and Milwaukee's DIRECT HIT! Also on the bill are a couple of New Jersey bands who recently released a split 7".

Union County's Not The Bees! and New Brunswick's City Limits digitally released a 4-song 7" over the summer via Death To False Hopes Records. The pairing is a good one as both bands pair aggressive vocals and big guitar riffs with a pop sensibility that makes for some definite "sing along songs" (h/t Scotch LaRock).

Not The Bees! get things started with "Robert Jordan" and its big, melodic Fucked Up-like guitars. The second Not The Bees! entry, "The Future Ain't What It Used to Be," is a frenetic rocker peppered with "whoa-ohhs" and a fist-pumping refrain of "If you ever need me, I'll be there for you!"

The tracks from City Limits, a little more aggressive from the vocal standpoint, form kind of a mini concept album. "Murder Diner" deals with the struggles of succeeding as a band, repeating "Goddammit! I can't do it on my own!" "Writing Fiction" gives us the other side of that coin with "I'm going nowhere. I'll do it on my own."

You can download the split for free over at the Death To False Hopes website. Physical copies will be available, for the first time, at tonight's show at Asbury Lanes. Doors for tonight's show, which also features New Brunswick's Feeny, open at 7pm. Tickets are 15 bucks at the door.