Written by Trevor Finlay and Ray Barnette, an Emmy-nominated songwriter with a Top 10
Billboard Country hit who has produced and sung on publishing demos for writers including Kim Williams (“Ain’t Going Down ’Til the Sun Comes Up,” recorded by Garth Brooks), and produced by Trevor Finlay and Michael Klooster (keyboardist for Smash Mouth, as well as a producer, composer, and recording engineer), the single blends tight, groove-heavy instrumentation with a chant-worthy hook that hits instantly.

“Shut The Hell Up” taps into the all-too-familiar experience of speaking before thinking,
something Finlay approaches with self-awareness and a dose of irreverence. “I like to say that ‘Shut The Hell Up’ is about having a quick mouth, sometimes you say things you haven’t really thought through fully,” says Finlay. “I have a history of saying the wrong things at the wrong times, a characteristic that I come by very honestly. This tune is dedicated to everyone with the same affliction.”

From the opening line, “I must like the taste of my foot in my mouth,” to its driving,
tongue-in-cheek chorus, the track walks the line between self-awareness and straight-up rock attitude. It’s relatable, a little reckless, and exactly the kind of song that feels best played loud.

Finlay isn’t new to this. A Nashville-based, multi-faceted singer, songwriter, producer, and
session musician, he has toured internationally as both a solo artist and an in-demand
sideman—at one point logging over 300 shows a year. Along the way, he’s shared the stage
with legends including James Brown, Buddy Guy, and Johnny Winter, as well as Booker T. &
the M.G.’s, Chris Isaak, and Charlie Daniels. His sound draws from the lineage of The
Rolling Stones, The Allman Brothers Band, and Joe Walsh, but never leans on nostalgia.
This is a living, breathing extension of classic rock, not a throwback.
His previous release, “Get Into It,” pushed his reach beyond the stage, with songs landing in network television placements including CBS’s All Rise (“Poor Lucille”) and ABC’s
Stumptown (“Get Into It”).

Finlay is also known for his sharp-witted personality and high-energy live shows, where
musicianship and humor collide in real time. With “Shut The Hell Up,” Trevor Finlay doesn’t
just deliver another single, he doubles down on everything that’s made his career last:
authenticity, attitude, and the kind of rock and roll that doesn’t need to try too hard to hit hard.

Press via Danielle Reiss | Dead Horse Branding

The song sits comfortably in the territory between Noah Kahan’s modern folk-pop and the more traditional Americana lineage of Willie Nelson and John Denver, which is exactly where Turner is aiming. What keeps it from feeling derivative is the production approach: intimate and spacious at the same time, built on acoustic guitar and mandolin with Schuck’s pedal steel doing a lot of the emotional heavy lifting in the verses and bridge. The track breathes differently than most indie folk releases precisely because it was built across multiple rooms and locations rather than tracked in one session. That distance is audible in the arrangement in a good way.

Lyrically, it works on two levels without overexplaining either. On the surface, it’s a road song. Underneath, it’s about shedding weight, resetting perspective, and the particular clarity that only arrives when you put enough miles between yourself and whatever was dragging you down. The bridge handles that plainly without tipping into self-help territory, and the outro resolves the whole thing with a lightness that feels earned rather than forced. For a debut single, “Travelin’ Heart” is a confident statement of direction. Turner knows what kind of artist he wants to be, and the bones of something genuinely worth following are already here.

Michael Thomas Brown has been around music for a long time. He studied Recording Production and Technology at Middle Tennessee State University, spent years teaching guitar outside Nashville, and eventually moved into orchestral composition, with instrumental works landing in TV productions internationally. This is his first traditional solo album, the first time he’s recorded his own voice, and he handled all of it himself – writing, producing, engineering, mastering, and playing nearly everything. Guitars, bass, percussion, synths, piano, and an assortment of sampled objects from around his house and yard: flower pots, soda bottles, a lawnmower, a fence. David Adkins contributes hand drums on one track, and John Shade plays the drum kit on another. Otherwise, this is entirely Michael Thomas Brown’s record.

The album sounds like its cover art, an acoustic guitar floating on a serene ocean, witnessing the sun rise. It’s like Michael Thomas Brown is impersonating the warmth of the guitar in his own vocals. The album blends musically because of that. It stays relatively warm and simple in its arrangements the whole way through, but each song becomes distinct because of its unique thematic impact. There is some really great songwriting here. Let’s go through some highlights.

“You’re Like the Sun” is a wholesome love song. The sun is the biggest star we interact with daily, and its rising every day is an intrinsically positive event because it signals the start of a new day. It makes perfect sense to draw a comparison between the sun, which gives everything life, and your lover. Michael Thomas Brown adds to the hook that the sun keeps the monsters away, which, in relation to a loving partner, can mean that the aura of love weakens monsters; it signals to predators that you are not to be messed with because your love fortifies you.

“Universe” talks about the connection between the internal and external universe. We are museums of everything we have ever loved. Like the “real” or outer universe, our internal universe expands all the time and will continue to expand till the very end. Michael Thomas Brown highlights that it’s not just good things that get added to our internal universes, but also every tragedy, but he wouldn’t change a thing about it because life is to be experienced as a whole, and the tragedies are fundamental to the complete experience.

“Into the Deep” does wonders for the immersion into the listening experience of this album, as there are samples of beach and ocean sounds as the guitar melodies lull us into the deep end of the ocean. But it’s not a terrifying experience; on the contrary, it’s very soothing to swim in the dark with the stars as your only light. I personally found it very calming to meditate to this song.

“The End” is suitably the final track on the album. It’s much more atmospheric than anything else on the album. The ambience is done masterfully, and there is this Pink Floydian quality to the melodic approach of the entire song, but especially the guitar solo. Overall, this is what music plays when you drive into the sunset, which is how this album ends in my mind. It starts with the sun rising and ends with it setting. Thematically, the song is about how at life’s end, there are no regrets because we found love and hope on the journey, and that’s more than enough.

For a debut vocal album, made alone in a bedroom while undergoing cancer treatment, Dreams, Monsters, and the Universe carries itself with a quiet confidence that a lot of more resource-heavy records never quite find. The RIYL comparisons to Peter Gabriel and Pink Floyd are not idle – there’s that same sense of music being used to process something real, without letting the processing become the whole point. Michael Thomas Brown said he wanted a place to set down the weight of the heavy things. That’s exactly what this album sounds like, and it’s worth your time.

Brown’s own words set the stage better than any description could:

“I began writing and recording this concept album in my small bedroom studio while undergoing treatment for Stage IV metastatic cancer. It became my own kind of therapy. A place to set down the weight of the heavy things, free my mind and focus on something I could control. In those moments, I learned to face my daily fears, acknowledge the people I love, and ponder the big questions — what life is, what it means, and how we all must accept that it doesn’t last forever.”

The album’s guiding philosophy is Newtonian in its elegance — for every action, an equal and opposite reaction. A dropped ball bounces back. Planets are pushed and pulled by gravity’s endless dance. Happiness and sadness, love and heartbreak — all part of the same rhythm. The bad things that happen to us, Brown argues, can become the catalyst for something extraordinary. Dreams, Monsters, and the Universe is his proof of that proposition, made flesh in nine songs.

Recorded entirely by Brown himself — guitars, bass, percussion, synths, piano, and an extraordinary array of found sounds sampled from objects around his house and yard, including flower pots, soda bottles, fans, his lawnmower, and a fence — the album achieves a sonic world that is both intimate and expansive. The only additional musicians are David Adkins, who played hand drums on “You’re Like the Sun,” and John Shade, who played drum kit on “Universe.” Every other note, texture, and layer is Brown’s alone.

For fans of Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd / David Gilmour, and Blue October, the record will feel immediately familiar and entirely fresh at once — alternative and indie rock at its core, with progressive structure and indie pop sensibility woven throughout. It is the sound of a man who has spent decades studying music from the inside out, finally bringing all of it to bear on something wholly his own.

Dreams, Monsters, and the Universe is Brown’s first traditional solo album, his first time committing his singing voice to record, and the first project he has written, produced, engineered, and mastered entirely himself. For an artist with his background, that combination of firsts carries considerable weight.

“It was a labor of love,” he says, “met with humility.”

Brown grew up in rural Alabama, playing KISS and AC/DC songs on a Sears guitar — the classic origin story of a kid who found something in music and never let go. He later studied Recording Production and Technology at Middle Tennessee State University and, while teaching guitar outside Nashville, began studying orchestral composition. That path led to his instrumental works being licensed for use in television programmes around the world.

Today, he lives in Crystal River, Florida with his wife and best friend Lori, occasionally performing fingerstyle guitar covers of 80s New Wave music at local restaurants. He remains, in his own words, forever a student — as long as he is playing, he is learning.

He is also still in the fight. And he is optimistic.

“I’m optimistic about the future because I’ve come to believe the harder you fall, the higher you bounce back. At least that’s what Sir Isaac said.”

⇒ Check our thoughts on “Whispers of 1000 Dreams Ago” here.

Drawing inspiration from bands like Joy Division, The Doors, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, “Whispers of 1000 Dreams Ago” stands out for its lyrical imagery and emotional resonance. The song opens pathways to inner dimensions, creating a reflective and immersive experience that beckons to the sonic realm of dream travel. From quiet reflection to intimate inner release, the track captures the band’s unique ability to blend introspection with dynamic energy, making it a significant addition to the modern music landscape.

Parked Outside, hailing from Los Angeles and Houston, United States, is a dynamic musical collective led by Chris Kinkade on vocals and Slayden Clarkson on guitar and bass. Originally coming together in Houston as part of the band “Six Days Off,” their shared passion for music led them to form Parked Outside, a project that allows them to fully realize their vision and influences. With the addition of Mike Brown on drums and Brett Busch on lead guitar, Parked Outside brings a unique blend of creativity and talent to the music scene, captivating audiences with their eclectic sound.

The Los Angeles/Houston collective leans into a shadowy blend of 80s rock, post-punk pulse, and dark wave spaciousness to create something that feels less like nostalgia and more like transmission. From its opening moments, the song moves with quiet patience, a slow unfurling rather than an instant grab, allowing its emotional terrain to emerge organically.

At the center stands Chris Kinkade’s baritone voice, steady and grounded, yet curiously luminous. His delivery resists melodrama, opting instead for a tone of wonder, as though he’s mapping an interior landscape that is vast rather than claustrophobic. It’s here that the Joy Division comparison may arise, but the emotional destination is different: not dread, but expansion.

The instrumentation deepens this sense of inward travel. Slayden Clarkson’s compositional framework gives the track its meditative backbone, while Brett Busch’s lead guitar introduces flashes of raw urgency that periodically tear through the dreamlike haze. These moments don’t disrupt the atmosphere, they illuminate it, adding a human ache beneath the song’s ceremonial stillness. Mike Brown’s drumming quietly anchors the journey, ensuring the track never floats too far from the body.

Influences from The Doors and Stevie Ray Vaughan appear not as stylistic gestures but as philosophical echoes: rock as ritual, and sound as passage. The result is a piece that feels discovered rather than manufactured, a sonic reflection on memory, consciousness, and the spaces that sit just beyond language.

Parked Outside aren’t just revisiting the past here, they’re indeed listening to something older, and potentially, timeless!

• Your musical journey commenced spontaneously with Spiral Roadfollowing your son’s accident, evolving through subsequent albums to incorporate increasingly impressionistic and mystical elements. How has this trajectory, informed by personal adversity and a lack of prior songwriting experience, refined your integration of folk roots with experimental textures?

The trajectory, or change from then to now, isn’t something entirely conscious. You move on from whatever was happening at the time that inspired your writing to new experiences, new textures and emotional landscapes. The journey continues insofar as I am still dealing with ever shifting aspects of loss, but I have changed and so the music changes.getting to a place of surrender and acceptance feels more spacious and peaceful, lending itself to more impressionistic and experimental sounds. 

• Transitioning from guitar-centric compositions to incorporating piano in five tracks on mother’s dayhighlights your classical training. In what manner has this instrumental shift facilitated your exploration of subconscious and dream-like themes across your body of work?

I studied classical guitar for 3-4 years in my late teens. However there is something about the grid structure of the fret board that makes it harder for me to be impressionistic. Piano was my first instrument and I returned to classical study for a number of years through my 20s. It’s linear and unfolded. It’s so easy to run around in open watery lonely lines that lend themselves to dreamlike writing. In and out of chords with no contour lines. Everything feels deconstructed on the piano, laid out…the black and white keys like stepping stones. I drifted back to it and found more freedom and experimentation there. 

• mother’s day emerges from a phase of grieving intertwined with anger and depression, manifesting in songs that confront unresolved realities and chaos. What guided the album’s narrative arc toward acceptance through surrender, particularly in tracks like “Temporary Emissary” as a tribute to your daughter Claire?

The narrative arc of the album reflects my own road towards radical acceptance. When terrible things happen to people you love, you want to fix, save, control. As a mother I did that for years but it was killing me and I had to change. The songs reflect that repeatedly, and some things can’t be resolved. Or the only resolution is to accept there’s no resolution. At least not the one I wanted. Claire is my youngest and was the most removed from my older son’s accident. My journey raising her was different and felt very new. Many memories of watching her grow up crept into temporary emissary. Also, there’s nothing like having a child to remind you of time and how fast it passes. Bringers of hope and reminders of transience. Everyone is a temporary emissary.

• The album’s symbolism, including references to Watership Down‘s rabbits and the Black Rabbit of Inle, permeates both lyrics and cover art by Kima Lenghan. How did these mythological motifs enhance the thematic interplay of predation, survival, and transformation in pieces such as “Honeycomb” and “Polonium”?

My experience of loss made me feel like a prey animal. Am I being stalked by some invisible malice etc. But that’s a story I tell myself. It’s just life, full of hardships of infinite variety. I love stories and storytelling. Richard Adams used the archetypal heroic journey to spin a great tale of flight, risk, leadership, courage and communal survival. The rabbits learn to survive because of each other. Adams created a rabbit language and mythology and at times the action stops and the rabbits tell each other mythic stories. The most powerful of these is when the prince of rabbits journeys to the underworld to bargain with the black rabbit of Inle, the angel of death, for the lives of his rabbits. The black rabbit, whose eyes are red with a light that gives no light, dwells in a cold stone burrow where his own silent shadowy army manages and maintains all the methods by which rabbits may die. The black rabbit speaks of an endless line of mothers, offering him their lives for their kittens. But there is no bargain, for what is, is what must be. This may be a story, but it is made of truth. The rabbits find a new home, where the great meeting place at the centre of the warren is called the ‘honeycomb’. Like a womb. In my song honeycomb, I’m singing about fear, encounters with mortality, corruption, and finding sanctuary after war. I sing a story inspired by a story within a story. Do you see the ripples? Polonium is also about death, more directly. The assassination of Alex Litvinenko, a former Russia KGB defector. Agents of Putin travelled to London with polonium 210, a radioactive isotope, which they put into a pot of tea used to poison him. He was dead in 3 weeks. State sponsored first degree murder. The crime preoccupied my lawyer brain, musically I was inspired by the pain it caused to his wife and son. and such methodical evil.

• Family involvement, with daughters Sara Jarvie Clark and Claire Alden providing backing vocals, adds a layer of intimacy to mother’s day. How did their contributions influence the emotional resonance of tracks addressing parental struggles and substance use disorders, like “40%” and “Caterpillar”?

It’s great to sing with family. We blend well together. But also, the girls participated in the catharsis of making art about our shared experience of trauma and finding meaning through artistic expression. It helps the family healing process. particularly on honeycomb and 40%. You release your experience in art. It helps to let go.

• The music video for “Caterpillar,” synchronized with footage from Jan van Ijken’s Becoming, celebrates life’s genesis amid lament. What considerations shaped this visual collaboration to mirror the song’s exploration of divine creation and personal helplessness?

The film itself is so elemental and life affirming. This is when love started for me – the primal state at conception, this awe inspiring process at work in the body. The song is a lament but it’s also about change and healing. At times the newt is confined, then twitching and writhing to break out and be born. I felt that way about my son. Beautiful, confined, needing to grow and change and break out. but stuck. I think the film highlights the helplessness because it shows what I can’t control, what I want for him in the last few frames, emergence and to find and live his purpose.

• With mother’s daypoised for staggered international release, what promotional approaches are you contemplating to engage global audiences, potentially through multimedia interpretations or thematic extensions that amplify its messages of hope and recovery?

I want to make more videos in the next few months, some before the european release For polonium, mother’s day, 40% and honeycomb. My plan is to continue making videos that are less traditional for artists in my genre. things that capture my themes. I’d like to do some visualizers. I would love to include some visual media in my shows and do a series on instagram where I talk about the album art, literature and storytelling and how it influences my songwriting. Maybe some shorts on Watership Down.

• Beyond this album, what new compositional avenues or partnerships are you exploring, such as further piano-led works or interdisciplinary projects that continue to blend mysticism, personal mythology, and societal critiques?

Hard to think too far ahead. I have a number of new songs ready to go. I have a plan for a bluegrass record, but I also have songs that might work in a folk rock record. We’ll just have to see!

US heavy/hard rock artist Frank Palangi is celebrating the 10th anniversary of his fan-favorite single “Break These Chains”, originally released on August 28, 2015. 

The record was mostly tracked at Lucy’s Meat Market in Los Angeles with producer Jim McGorman, who’s worked with Goo Goo Dolls and Sabrina Carpenter. McGorman handled keys and synth, with David Levita on guitar, Jon Button on bass, Steve Fekete on guitar, and Marc Slutsky on drums. Fields of Jake pulls from Jackson Browne and Paul Simon while landing somewhere between The Kinks and Dawes. The album runs just under 35 minutes and covers love, loss, familial ties, and wanderlust over a soft-rock foundation.

The album starts with “Something To Look Forward To”, and it sets the sunny vibes in place. I couldn’t help but smile as I listened to it on my morning walk. Jake Fields’ voice has such warmth and delivers the lyrics with a yearning for better days and something to look forward to. It’s a genuinely heartfelt expression, and it works on both the melodic and lyrical levels.

What follows is “Win the Game”, and it’s basically the other end of Jake’s style. A wistful ballad with gorgeous chord changes and an incredibly intimate vocal performance. But we don’t stay there for long as “Sprinter Van” picks the energy back up with a nice straightforward pop backbeat and a dreamy prechorus section. The songwriting on display here is exceptional for someone early in their musical career.

That becomes even clearer with “Single Forever”; it’s simultaneously the catchiest song on the album and has surprising depth about relationships and Jake’s personal experience. The reason why it’s catchy is because of Jake’s clever use of a melodic motif being played on the guitar and sung at various points in the song; a technique used by everyone from The Beatles to Taylor Swift.

The next two songs on the record take us into a more relaxed ambient feel temporarily away from the upfront pop sound of the previous songs. “If Only It Was Up To Me” is wishful thinking in a song. Thematically, I can summarise it to “If only I had that power, then we would never be alone”. It’s a powerful story, and the ambience creates the perfect atmosphere for it. Especially that guitar solo doing gnarly distorted unison bends with lots of reverb to serve as the subconscious expression of those wishes.

“Too Many Steps To Heaven” is my personal favourite song on the album. How the story unfolds in the verses and how it’s paced musically, melodically, and rhythmically is simply perfect. I wouldn’t change a thing about it. The musical canvas here is so appropriate for the lyrical content; it fits like a glove. This is a timeless song. In contrast to that, a more time-constrained song, “Nowhere, California”, is about personal experiences, broken dreams in a very modern setting, but stylistically it plays like a classic folk song.

Finally, the album ends with its title track. A song about reminiscence, goodbyes, and most of all love. Jake Fields was definitely saving the best for last. This song is similar to other ambient songs on the album, with melodic guitar lines breaking up the lyrical sections and a strong focus on melody to tell his story. I think that as Jake’s sound evolves, he will lean more towards this style as he feels more natural in this style.

Fields of Jake has been praised by Live Nation’s Ones to Watch, Atwood Magazine, and a handful of other publications since 2020. For a debut album, All The Rest shows range without losing focus. The production from McGorman keeps everything cohesive, even as the songs shift between upbeat pop-rock and more subdued ballads. Fields’ background in live performance comes through in how the songs are structured. They feel like they were written to connect with an audience, not just fill out a tracklist. Based on what’s here, he’s got room to grow, and that’s a good thing.