Dave's Take:Today you get the pleasure of finding out about one of my all time favorite modern rock bands: Greenwheel. The CD entitled Soma Holiday starts off with the track "Strong" which sounds like a comination of Fuel and three doors down. On this first track you immediately feel the intensity of the lead singer. I saw this band at a small venue in San Francisco and the lead singer somehow had even more emotion live than on the CD which didn't seem possible. It was simply amazing. One of the great things about this CD is that there is not a weak track on the entire album. No filler as they would say. In fact, the track "Breathe", which got some modern rock airplay, was covered quite well by Melissa Ethridge. On that track, lead singer Ryan Jordan proclaims "It only hurts when I breathe" The album has a good mixture of energetic rock-out tracks like the album’s opener “Shelter”,which was on the spiderman soundtrack, "Strong" and “Faces” as well as softer, beautiully melodic more acoustic driven songs such as “Breathe” , “Disappear,” "Dim Halo" which are performed with the same passion as the harder rock tracks, yet with more of an emotional passion than one of musical intensity. If I had to pick one weak track, it might be Radiance, however its still solid for being the worst track on the album. The lyrics are very realatable and use an expansive vocabulary so as not to sound too formulaic. According to the band, all 12 tracks—plus 13 additional songs not on Soma Holiday—were written in a storage shed in Tennessee. It's too bad these guys were never discovered by mainstream America as this CD is a true modern rock gem from beginning to end.RATING: 9/10
SOUNDS LIKE: Fuel, Three Doors Down, Matchbox 20
BAND BIO:"Greenwheel is an American pop/rock band formed by friends Ryan Jordan, Brandon Armstrong, Andrew Dwiggins and Mark Wanninger in 1999. The band was formed in St. Charles, Missouri in a local record shop. This group of high school bandmates were originally called Hindsight before changing their name to Soma Holiday. They released a self titled album that same year which garnered them local attention. After this brief period, they went underground, performing only occasionally. In 2000, the group renamed themselves Greenwheel and released a four song demo and began performing at various venues in New York City before they were signed by Island Records.
Greenwheel worked with producer Jim Wirt in early 2004 on 16 new songs for a second full-length release on Island Records. The tentative name of the record was Electric Blanket, but it never came out since the band parted ways with the label in 2004. The band made the unreleased tracks available through a media player on their official website. The band has expressed interest at their shows that fans distribute the CD amongst themselves if they don't have a copy, and the band provides burned copies of the disc for free at their shows.
After parting ways with Island, the band remixed and remastered their first independent self-titled release, and they re-releaseed it to the public in 2005. While it shared the same name as their first major-label release, it actually consisted of a completely different track lineup with the exception of "Drowning Man" and "Louder Than Words," which appear on both releases.
In addition to parting ways with Island, the band also parted ways with long-time drummer Doug Randall, and Drew Bailey joined the band to fill the vacant spot behind the drum kit. Long-time guitarist Marc Wanninger also departed the band, resulting the current four-member lineup.
On March 28, 2006, the band released a brand new five song EP entitled Bridges For Burning. The new release was accompanied by Greenwheel's five month long "Bridges for Burning Tour."
BEST SONGS: SHELTER, STRONG, SUSTAIN YOU,BREATHE, DROWNING MAN, DIM HALO, THE END, LONELY AFTERGLOW (from their new EP), I DON'T BELIEVE (From their Indy EP)
SONG SAMPLES/VIDEOS:
Click HERE for greenwheel MP3 player (Full length songs of everything but their latest EP)
Click on Standalone player tab to open myspace player.
"BREATHE" VIDEO
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