STROUDSBURG — After Microwave released its first LP “Stovall” through Boston’s Antique Records in August 2014, people began to take notice. The Atlanta quartet spent the first half of 2015 touring with the likes of Somos, Transit and Sorority Noise; they spent the second half as one of independent record label SideOneDummy’s newest signings.
“It’s definitely an awesome thing,” said bassist Tyler Hill. “We put ‘Stovall’ out in 2014 and we got, like, 1,000 plays on it the first day, which isn’t really much but for us was an astronomical number. With SideOneDummy, they have a lot more resources … a lot of people have been receptive to what we’re doing and the music we’re putting out so I feel like we’re pretty fortunate.”
Microwave’s debut release on the label (a split EP with Buffalo, New York’s, Head North) led to the first bit of airplay exposure. An early 2016 SideOneDummy re-release of “Stovall” got the band’s music into the hands of even more potential fans, and its current slot on long-running pop-punk group The Wonder Years’ spring 2016 tour puts them in front of some of its biggest crowds yet. All the exposure is building to the release of Microwave’s newest album, which Hill said takes the band in a new direction while keeping them acquainted with familiar territory.
“Nathan (Hardy, vocals/guitar) has been listening to a whole bunch of old school blues and jazz songs; there’s a little bit of a flare for that in there,” Hill said. “I feel like we kind of just took a lot of the elements of ‘Stovall’ and expanded on them. We took the oddball songs and pushed them further in the oddball direction.”
Drummer Tito Pittard described their sound as aggressive indie punk music. The band is compared to fellow Atlanta rockers Manchester Orchestra, but concert goers to The Wonder Years’ April 1 show at Stroudsburg’s Sherman Theater will have a chance to check out Microwave. The group’s mixture of emotional indie and driving pop-punk is a fitting compliment to The Wonder Years’ latest effort, 2015’s “No Closer to Heaven.”
“We’ve kind of expressed some thoughts and some feelings in some slower songs on this one, like ‘Cigarettes and Saints’ and ‘Stained Glass Ceilings,’” said The Wonder Years bassist Josh Martin in a September 2015 interview with Weekender. “I’m happy with the whole record, but those are some things that stand out a little bit more I think from our other records.”
Attendees of the April 1 show will hear sets from Minnesota’s Tiny Moving Parts and California’s letlive., along with a headlining set from Pennsylvania’s The Wonder Years. Those spending their April Fools’ Day evening at Sherman Theater should pay close attention to Microwave. The band’s music has resonated with bloggers who write about them, acts that toured with them and record labels that signed them; it may be the next thing to resonate with you.
