Machines” by Paradise Now, Friday, March 22, 2024
Imagine being a new band in 2019, releasing your first EP which has earned enough hype to put you on a big tour with a veteran band, only to have that tour canceled because the industry came to a halt with the pandemic. That’s what happened to brothers Sam and Ben Taylor and their friend Nathan Beaton of Paradise Now. The Welsh band did not tour with Disciple in 2020 as planned, however, they released an extra EP called Lockdown Mixtape to lead up to their full-length debut, We Never Die, both released in 2021. The band's social media has been quiet since the release of the LP.
IT’S GETTING OLD. In 2019, Tooth & Nail Records revealed that they had signed a new band. The label posted a photo of the band's silhouette and asked fans to guess who had been signed. I commented "dc talk?" which got a few laughs from the community. Sometimes when a band is signed with Tooth & Nail Records, listeners know who the band is. Often it's a band connected to the scene; someone who has opened for a bigger Tooth & Nail act. Often these bands have a well-grown pre-signee fanbase. On the Labeled Podcast, host Matt Carter has talked about how the label doesn't usually sign a band from out of the blue. Yet some bands seem random on an otherwise connected label, and Paradise Now seems to have come from out of nowhere. The band's Spotify biography talks about the band forming an eclectic sound in Wales "without a local music scene." There are a few famous Welsh bands, such as my bloody valentine, Manic Street Preachers, LOSTPROPHETS, and Badfinger, and solo recording artists, such as Tom Jones, Duffy, Donna Lewis, John Cale, and Bonnie Tyler--but according to Paradise Now, the local music scene is just whoever happens to wander into Bridgend, and music lovers couldn't build a niche rock scene as in America and even London.
WE'RE BETTER NOW. Unfortunately, it seems that Paradise Now has become the all-too-common story of a Tooth & Nail band underperforming and then disappearing. This month, Spotify shows that Paradise Now has only around nine thousand monthly listeners. However, looking at streaming numbers of other smaller Tooth & Nail bands, Paradise Now's nine thousand monthly streams look average. However, I wonder if Tooth & Nail will resurrect the band. Paradise Now being in Wales seems to be a great barrier to their American audience, especially with being able to jump on tours. Perhaps the band's momentum was a casualty of the pandemic. But today, we're not looking at the band's debut album, but we're going back to an obscure track on their EP, Supernatural. The band has a tight modern rock sound, influenced by worship music, hard rock, and electronic music. Three of the six songs appear on We Never Die in 2021. "WildOnes" gets a remix and today's song "Machines" gets an acoustic version on the follow-up EP, Lockdown Mixtape. "Machines" is one of my favorite songs by the band. It showcases lead singer Sam Taylor's earnest vocals, and the lyrics deal with fighting against "non-stop goals," being wrong and trying to find "a better way," and begging the listener "Please don't judge me quite yet." It's also one of my "chilly songs"--creating warmth out of a cold atmosphere. I don't know when and if we'll hear anything else from Paradise Now, but I think they are certainly worth a listen.
Lyric video:
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