Americana Highways brings you this preview premiere of Atlanta band, Dwayne Shivers,’ entire EP Blest. Blest is due out Friday, but you can have a listen right here today while you pre-order! The Dwayne Shivers band is frontman Micah Dalton with Anthony Aparo (both on acoustic guitars and vox), and the album features Chris Parker alternating between drums and electric guitar, Jeremy McDonald on bass and keys; with Gerald Menke on pedal steel on “Southern Breeze,” and songs co-written with Rick Lollar. Dwayne Shivers also pulled in guest appearances by Eric Lane, Matt Wright, Adam Dotson, Alec Spiegelman, Andrew McGovern and Nick Spiegelman.
Songs like “Particular Times,” will bounce your toes with wah-wah and southern rock style keys, while “Young Man” gives you shivers recalling the lost dreams of childhood. And “Misty, Morning Dew ” is the heart of the album, with its heartbeat drumbeats and the observation that the character’s brothers “punched through the wall he made for” them. This EP is a gem of emotional honesty.
The “Blest” EP, is a collection of songs written largely in New York when my wife and I were living in Brooklyn in a 400 square foot apartment. Most of them were written in Skype sessions with Rick Lollar, or in my apartment, where I spent many days alone until my wife came home from school or work. Thematically, that loneliness played into the many of songs – missing Atlanta, missing my 20s, and feeling exhausted from the zeitgeist like my artistic observer needed a software update. ‘Misty, Morning Dew’ was an outlier – written in two waves in Atlanta but finished last-minute in the studio; the chords and lyrics weren’t defined until we recorded it in January 2017. This process was highly unusual for me but really exciting. It became my favorite song on the EP, albeit the most impromptu. — Micah Dalton
You can pre-order right here, http://www.dwayneshivers.com/ while you’re getting a sneak preview listen right here: