Search - Blue Skies for Black Hearts :: Serenades and Hand Grenades

'We're making pop music the way it should be made,' lead singer and songwriter Pat Kearns says casually as he returns to the board to mix 'Siouxsie Please Come Home', the premier track off Serenades and Hand Grenades, the brand new 12 song album from Blue Skies For Black Hearts. With the advent of digital, today's artists frequently pile their computers with hundreds of tracks and takes, hoping time, reflection and deft editing will produce a masterpiece. Blue Skies, while embracing the functional advantages of modern recording technology, self imposed many of the limitations that fueled the creativity of rock and roll for the last half century. Decisions were made on the spot, focused primarily on feel and melody. Instruments were recorded live with ambiance and real plate reverb instead of relying on digital plug-ins later. Harmonies were worked out around the piano, moments before the entire band gathered around a single, tube microphone to sing the takes together. Nothing was ever added to tracks that needed to be 'worked out later in the mix' - a common method of the digital generation. From the first time this record spins, you will feel the same intimacy and attraction that fans have longed for since the Brits invaded America (both times). Each of the 12 tracks of Serenades and Hand Grenades is another piece, another story, another facet, of what music has been missing lately.