Synthwave heavy-hitters Magic Sword and Dance With the Useless are wrapping up their co-headliner North American tour in Washington state, playing Fortunate You Lounge on Saturday night just before finishing up in Seattle on Sunday.
Considering that 2013, both equally Magic Sword and Dance With the Dead have designed a identify for themselves by combining epic, danceable and multi-layered synthesizer soundscapes with a punchy rock edge. In a scene dominated generally by notebook DJs, watching these trios jam onstage with true instruments is a breath of fresh new air.
Even though the nature of their seem and stage presence makes the two bands rather market, they have celebrated noteworthy victories – Dance With the Dead’s most recent album, “Driven to Insanity,” broke into iTunes’ prime a few digital albums on launch, and Magic Sword’s music have been showcased in the video sport Hotline Miami 2: Completely wrong Number and the official trailer for the hit film “Thor: Ragnarok.”
Putting their very own spin on the “wall of synthesizers” seem popularized by 1980s movie scores – and in additional new historical past, “Stranger Things” – these bands regulate to be retro and contemporary at the exact time. “Mixing cinematic synth tunes from my childhood with dance music, I arrogantly assumed I had occur up with a new style,” stated the Keeper, the frontman and lead songwriter for Magic Sword, a Boise-dependent band.
“Then I got on SoundCloud and understood there is this male named Lazerhawk who’s already been undertaking it for five decades!” he said. “But I talked to him – Lazerhawk is an wonderful dude. I truthfully imagined I had appear up with a special strategy, but I didn’t – which is excellent for the reason that there’re so lots of terrific musicians out there.”
Dance With the Useless and Magic Sword introduced their 2020 co-headliner tour in late 2019, and this kind of was their self-confidence likely into it that Magic Sword selected to release their new album “Endless” on the first day of the tour – March 27, 2020. As we all know, March 2020 was not a good time for the leisure sector – or everyone else, for that issue.
“We were quite energized, so when it got canceled, it was a combination of emotions,” the Keeper said. “You’re devastated, but you also come to feel responsible for concentrating on petty factors – due to the fact persons are dying.”
“We’re not a huge band,” he claimed. “We experienced requested a lot of thousands of dollars of items for the tour, and we just sat on it for a although – but we count on that earnings.” When Magic Sword understood that the COVID-19 pandemic was a persistent one, the merch was posted for sale online and immediately bought out.
The fanbase for synthwave is something but large, but it is dedicated. It is no shock that such an image-ahead band who distributes full-blown comic guides to coincide with album releases managed to push the merch no matter of the tour’s cancellation. Quickly ahead two decades, and Magic Sword and Dance With the Lifeless lastly rallied the troops to embark on a breakneck-pace tour to make up for missing time.
“This has been a challenging tour – truly, definitely rough,” the Keeper mentioned. “I consider we’re seeking to subconsciously make up for lost dates, so there’s not a good deal of days off.” Thirty-nine demonstrates in 53 days is no joke – just one stint in early April pressured the bands to conduct seven times in a row prior to getting just 1 day off and then undertaking it all above once more.
To top it off, the Keeper attributes further pressure to co-headlining. “Each band has full-generation and headliner desires. We’ve been close friends with Dance With the Lifeless for a although – conversation is excellent,” he mentioned. “If I was accomplishing this with a different band I didn’t know, there’d most likely be some fights. I’ll select friendship around musicianship each individual time on the highway.”
Thankfully, Magic Sword didn’t have to select this time. I attended their performance in Austin on April 30. Both equally bands are extra than capable of offering exhilarating shows with soaring synths, blistering guitar solos and crushing drum beats even though lights flash and pulse intoxicatingly previously mentioned and guiding the two trios.
Not rather a rock clearly show, not pretty an electronic clearly show, synthwave occupies a special house involving the two, and it’s not one thing to be missed. Co-headliners Magic Sword and Dance With the Dead with guest Droid Bishop headline Fortunate You Lounge on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20.
Riordan Zentler can be arrived at at [email protected]