New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Just like clockwork, indie rock / power pop outfit The Persian Leaps have released a new EP Bicycle Face today, after premiering on GroundSounds earlier this week. It comes as their fifth EP in a five year span, an impressive feat for any band to churn out, and a milestone of accomplishment. With Bicycle Face, The Persian Leaps show they've mastered their skills of crafting the perfect hook and concise pop song. Full of fuzz guitar, hooky guitar melodies and driving beats, The Persian Leaps provide the perfect blend of indie rock and power pop to satisfy for days.
Frontman and vocalist Drew Forsberg explains the inspiration behind the band's decision to aim for the goal of releasing five EP's in five years. "I've never pushed the term but I always felt like our releases were mini-albums. They were cohesive and intentional - the five best songs we had ready each year that fit together. It wasn't meant to be a single and then a grab bag of songs of marginal quality that would never make the cut on an upcoming full-length. With our first EP, we just wanted to get our best available material out there, and five songs seemed like a good number. But after the first EP, I realized that I really liked the format. I'm a fan of brevity and have always loved EPs that stand alone as an artistic statement, like R.E.M.'s Chronic Town and Pavement's Watery, Domestic."
In describing the band's sound, and that of Bicycle Face, it's not surprise that Forsberg nods heavily to influences including Guided By Voices, Teenage
Fanclub and The Smiths for inspiration. "I'm still very much influenced by the music I grew up listening to in the '80s and early '90s," he said. "It's guitar-oriented power pop with a mix of distorted riffs and 12-string jangle. Upbeat chiming guitars contrasted with generally downbeat, melancholy lyrics."
The band notes thanks for their great working relationship with Neil Weir, studio owner of Blue Bell Knoll who the band has used for recording and mixing for all of their EPs. Released under Forsberg's own Land Ski Records Bicycle Face is available now in digital and physical CD format on Bandcamp, and can be found on iTunes and all other major digital retailers as well. The band will celebrate with a release show tonight at the 331 Club in Minneapolis, MN alongside
Queen of France and Crossing Guards. The show is free, 21+ with doors at 9:30pm; full details here.
While The Persian Leaps are proudly sharing their new release, and will be releasing an upcoming music video, they also have announced upcoming changes for the group. Their release show tonight will be their last live performance as a full band, and Forsberg shared that, "Stopping at an 'even' five EPs has great symmetry, but it also signals the end of an era for us. We're ready to try something new next time around."
ABOUT THE PERSIAN LEAPS:
"The Persian Leaps" began as a phrase singer/guitarist Drew Forsberg doodled in a notebook margin during a college Greek Archaeology course. He wrote music independently under that name for years, until finally assembling a full band in 2012 to perform and record driving, chiming music influenced by The Smiths, Guided by Voices, and Teenage Fanclub.
The Persian Leaps adhere to a disciplined schedule of concise releases: each fall brings an EP of five songs totaling fifteen minutes or less. In 2013, the Persian Leaps released their debut EP Praise Elephants, which NME Magazine described as a "celestial guitar jangle". The band completed a follow-up EP Drive Drive Delay in 2014, praised by XS Noize for its "instantly catchy melodic harmonies layered on top of droning guitar." In 2015, the band released High & Vibrate, an EP championed by The Big Takeover for its "big-time hooks, upbeat attitude, classic power-trio punch." Most recently, 2016 saw the release of Your City, Underwater, which earned a spot on The Big Takeover's Top 30 EPs of 2016.
The band recently completed their fifth EP, Bicycle Face, named for a 19th-century medical condition concocted to scare women away from biking. Land Ski Records releases Bicycle Face on
September 22, 2017.
