Gully Boys – The Way (Get Better Records)
Minneapolis three-piece Gully Boys release new single The Way on Get Better Records ahead of new EP Favourite Son dropping in September 2021.
Artist: Gully Boys
Track: The Way
Label: Get Better Records
Released: 27 August 2021
Find it: Bandcamp | Spotify
It was the song Neopet Graveyard which first drew me toward Minneapolis three-piece Gully Boys.
On their 2018 album Not So Brave, the very title of that track shot me back through my own timeline, to the coming-of-age version of me, all flushed with the warmth of first love and the heady anticipation which marked the end of the nineties. It took me to and attic room in terraced house, the purposeless hang-out with the person I’d made my world, unfurling bodies and thoughts and feelings and more, watching him connect beyond our geographic limits and create in this still-new-to-us online space.
With the tracks bass-line runs and soar-and-fall vocals I watched the re-run of that time in my life, sent there by nothing more than the title. Pages of sketches of cute and quirky creatures floated through the grainy memories, and they took him from the centrally-heated closeness and tingling fingertips of an English-winter were replaced by the endless sunshine and palms of LA. Creating Neopets isn’t my story, I’m just off to stage-left watching it all unfold and grow, and grow, and grow while falling in and out of love for the first time: ‘used to be bright, well now it’s fading away’. It’s not something I think about often, but a reference to Neopia is personal time-travel I can’t resist.
Anyway, we’re not here to talk about Neopet Graveyard, the memories held in my bones as my timeline ran adjacent to that formative online world, or Gully Boy’s debut album. We’re here to talk about their new single, The Way.
With big shimmering guitar licks, and a pounding rhythm there’s a sense The Way could easily be backing a montage in some equally polished TV drama. There’s a glossiness, a polish over the insistent rhythms and a sense of control even as guitars burst forth and vocals soar. There’s a weariness, but a resolve, in the repeated ‘Isn’t that the way it goes’ line, a hard rock edge which picks up neatly from the band’s output to date.
Of the track the band told AltPress, “The Way came to be after we thought we had exhausted all of the writing we were going to get out of the week we spent in the studio. Almost as an afterthought, it was pulled out of an iPhone voice memo and fleshed out. Instantly the song resonated heavily with us. Unlike some of the other tracks on our upcoming EP, The Way doesn’t diverge much from our previously released work. Instead, it feels like a tighter, more laser-focused version of what we’ve learned to do best, which is let Kathy (Callahan) yell.”
It’s become the norm when covering Gully Boys to mention how they only learnt to play their instruments in 2016, and this is their first band born from musical passion and discipline in creating something of their own from their influences. It bears repeating though as this band’s sound is so rounded it’s astonishing to know they are so early on in their journey – in years at least, they are clearly deep in practice hours. Those hours have paid off as matched to the passion they are skilfully delivering while keeping energy pure and full. A brilliant rock single The Way delightfully whets the appetite for the EP to come.
The Way by Gully Boys is out digitally now via Get Better Records.
Find Gully Boys: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Spotify | Bandcamp
Band image: Juliet Farmer
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Sarah Lay
A long-standing music journalist she's also co-founder of independent record label Reckless Yes, an author of novels, and when not messing around with words and music, a digital strategist.
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