New York, NY (Top40 Charts) In a year filled with album releases from some big names in the indie rock world, it's understandable that some great records from smaller artists would somehow slip under your radar.
Hence, a friendly reminder about Telethon's wonderfully, ambitious indie/punk rock opera ''The Grand Spontanean: A Tale Told In Five Acts', which you may have missed upon its release earlier this fall.
With guest spots by
Laura Stevenson, Chris Farren, The Hold Steady's Franz Nicolay,
Roger Lima of
Less Than Jake and
Peter Hess of The Hold Steady/TV On The Radio/more, and love from the likes of Billboard, BrooklynVegan, New Noise, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Impose, and Hartford Courant, this 90-minute, 30-song, 5-act concept album just might be the missing album on your End-of-Year Best-Of lists. Weirder things have happened, right?
Produced by Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Jeff Rosenstock, Joyce Manor, The Smith Street Band) 'The Grand Spontanean' is a cosmic trip of punk rock filtered through straight up rock n' roll a la Thin Lizzy, Weezer's anthemic power pop and every other style in which they could meld their sound into. It resulted in a true blue rock opera about a self-centered, internet addicted twenty-something realizing the world's about to end in a storm of noise and chaos.
'The Grand Spontanean' is now available for free/pay-what-you-want on Telethon's Bandcamp, which includes a 46-page digital Playbill with lyrics, liner notes, and artwork for each of the album's thirty tracks.
What others are saying about Telethon's ''The Grand Spontanean: A Tale Told In Five Acts':
Billboard: "The Grand Spontanean soars with robust emo anthems that take cues from the twin-guitar attack of
Thin Lizzy and the heartland sentiment of Bruce Springsteen."
Shepherd Express: "... a mammoth, utterly audacious marathon of a record...It includes interpolations of
No Doubt and
Carly Simon songs, a recitation of the Franz Kafka short story The Sudden Walk, several straight-up ska numbers and comes packaged with a 23-page playbill. If that all sounds like something that might be up your alley, it will be."
Milwaukee Record: "Telethon's latest demands attention.With an inventive idea and admirable execution, The Grand Spontanean effectively transforms this unknown pop-punk project from a band you've never heard of into one you have to hear."
BrooklynVegan: "It's a similar kind of high-spirited, unselfconscious, ambitious pop-punk album to Jeff Rosenstock's great WORRY."
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "Telethon has made a consistently strong and catchy album — all the more impressive given its 90-minute run-time — that successfully spans from Springsteen-esque heartland rock to punchy pop punk to back-porch country."
New Noise: "...somehow Telethon, a four-year-old band from (Milwaukee) with only two records to their name, have completely bucked every stereotype about concept albums with their 30-song rock opera."
ThePunkSite: "The Grand Spontanean is sprawling, ridiculous, eccentric and overblown, and if I'm honest I loved every minute of it."
UnderAirMedia: "This album is absolutely insane.
Everything here is truly a masterpiece."
Hartford Courant: "There's a welcome roughness to the thing, but some fine drama and musicality, including amusing swipes from Pachelbel's Canon and
James Bond movie themes."
telethon colonel
"We made a sprawling five-act rock opera about the internet, culture, human relationships, and the apocalypse. We hope you love it."- Telethon
ACT I: Bad Reputation (tracks #1-8)
1 The Signal
2. Apocalypse When
3. Succinct, the Optimist
4. Doctor
5. He's Right
6. The Paranoid Blur
7. Tiny Rushes
8. The Page at the End of the Internet
ACT II: Cold Sweat (tracks #9-13)
9. Punctuation!
10 Wrung
11. Flatpack
12. A Martyr's View from The View at the Marriott Marquis
13. The Page at the End of the
Internet (Reprise)
ACT III: Fight or Fall (tracks #14-20)
14. Underture
15. Temporarily
16. Stillwave (feat. Chris Farren)
17. The Improbable New Sensations
18. "GENERATOR" by The Improbable New Sensations
19. "UNTIL THE BALL STOPS" by The Improbable New Sensations
20. "MY SECOND-TO-LAST MONDAY" by The Improbable New Sensations
ACT IV: Running Back (tracks #21-26)
21. Notches on the Scale
22. The Runner's High (feat.
Roger Lima)
23. "The Sudden Walk" (by Franz Kafka; read by Franz Nicolay)
24. On Companionship (feat.
Laura Stevenson)
25. Weirdness Flows
26. Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve (feat.
Laura Stevenson)
ACT V: Remembering (tracks #27-30)
27. A Choice!
28. Firebrand
29. 30 Seconds of Silence!
30. Fruit Bat
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