New Music: Steammates by The Steamers
On a sweltering hot day this June, The Steamers recorded a live album at Robot!House!! and it’s finally available for your listening pleasure. Steammates features three originals by the local power-folk band as well as three very special covers. What makes these covers so special, is that the artists they covered, Cory Levesque, Jon Creeden and Robots!Everywhere!!, joined them for the performances.
The Steamers set up the performance so that they bounced from originals to covers constantly mixing it up, and they nailed it. The recording of the EP doesn’t only capture the music, but does a great job of representing the comedic personalities within the band. The humour gets going early, as they introduce themselves to Stittsville, Ontario (playing in Centretown) and say they are a band from Niagara Falls. The little comments and jokes can be heard between tracks.
The opening track, “Blue Skies,” is the seven-piece’s flagship track which got people singing along right away. They then get into their first cover “All My Friends Are Here” by Robots!Everywhere!!, which also features great sing along portions. Up next is the heavy and emotional original called “Mike.” You can really feel the hurt in the lyrics and the still quiet of the crowd. Getting back to the covers and keeping with the heaviness, the band is joined by Cory Levesque to play the bleeding heart ballad “Words Are Hard These Days.” In their final original, the band really shows its folk roots with the harmonica-driven tale of being stranded in a dead-end town in “Stay Here to Bleed.” Rounding out the album is the track that excites me the most. I never had a chance to see Jon Creeden in a band (missed those Dead Weight days) so it was really cool to see a full band sound combined with his powerful vocals on “Tired.” As you can tell on the recording, I was not alone in my excitement, as many people joined in and were looking for some love from the man.
Take a listen to Steammates below, and note that all EPs purchased help support a Steamers full-length in the works for Spring/Summer 2015. Hmm, steamy goodness!