BEEN STELLAR RELEASE DEBUT ALBUM SCREAM FROM NEW YORK, NY OUT NOW VIA DIRTY HIT | BELFAST, DUBLIN AND GALWAY SHOWS THIS YEAR
BEEN STELLAR
RELEASE DEBUT ALBUM
VIA DIRTY HIT
US TOUR WITH FONTAINES D.C. THIS FALL +
UK/EU HEADLINE TOUR
Scream From New York, NY Album Art | Hi-Res Download
Early Praise for Been Stellar
“a suite of cataclysmic anthems” – Pitchfork
“Steely Post-Punk” – Rolling Stone
“A raw and magnetic sound that strikes mercilessly” – Paste Magazine
“a howl of an indie rock record, wearing its scrapes and bruises proudly and sounding like it was made in the dark alley equivalent of a studio…This city may not be the same, but Been Stellar’s music fondly recalls the days when things were cheaper and scarier.” – Brooklyn Vegan
“Firey” – Stereogum
“Transcendental dissonance” – FLAUNT
“a glowing, crackling set of songs that balances moments of frenzied melancholy (“Sweet”) with bits of chaos and urgency (“Can’t Look Away”).” – Alt Press
“develops perfectly on the post-punk ethos from which the band hails, but infuses it with a spaciness and shoegaze vibe” – Consequence
“Post-punk has lately been inundated to the point of oversaturation, but Been Stellar proves that this subgenre hasn’t lost its luster quite yet” – Uproxx
“Been Stellar celebrate the spirit of New York City with moody, charging alt rock.” – Bandcamp
“The album will chew you up, spit you out, and disorient you, and once you’re back out, withdrawals from the pandemonium will make you want to do it all over again”- DIY
“A thriller from start to finish, Been Stellar’s ‘Scream from New York, NY’ is one of the most assured indie rock debuts to land on our desk this year” – Clash
New York’s Been Stellar have released their highly anticipated debut album Scream from New York, NY out now via their new label home Dirty Hit. A remarkably brutal debut – bruised and volatile, it captures an image of ‘20s New York that’s unrelenting and harsh, where tenderness is a finite resource burned up by the machinery of the city and human connection is a luxury product. Leaving behind the driving shoegaze of their early recordings, the NYC-based five-piece tap into the disaffected sound and spirit of New York luminaries like Sonic Youth and Interpol, as well as the nihilistic, yearning cool of Iceage and Bends-era Radiohead, striking upon a sound that’s fearsome, buffeting and beautiful at the same time – a tidal wave as viewed from underneath.
As its wry title implies, Scream from New York, NY, is a record about what happens when language fails – between friends, partners, a city and its citizens – and the primal scream you might let out when words just don’t work anymore.
On the album’s title track, vocalist Sam Slocum shares “This song’s roots date back three or four years. It feels like we’ve grown up adjacent to that opening bass line—like it’s always been there with us. When you have a song for so long it can take someone on the outside to reframe it,and that’s exactly what Dan did for us. The lyrics were originally based on a poem Sky wrote during the very early days of the pandemic in New York. We put the finishing touches on the lyrics right before I recorded the vocals—Sky and I pacing around outside the studio finishing each line together. In many ways this song serves as the album’s noisy yet calming centerpiece.”
Preceding the album release, Been Stellar shared a handful of standout singles including the white-knuckled and cutting “Sweet,” the ferocious late-album highlight “All In One,” the masterfully dynamic “Pumpkin,” and head turning lead single “Passing Judgment.”
WATCH VIDEOS FOR SINGLES
“PASSING JUDGMENT,” “ALL IN ONE,” “SWEET,” & “PUMPKIN”
Embed – “Passing Judgment” – https://youtu.be/
Embed – “All In One” – https://youtu.be/
Embed – “Sweet” Video – https://youtu.be/GsWnvEjJA-0?
Embed – “Pumpkin” – https://youtu.be/xE9z5_
Been Stellar spent the spring on a major European tour supporting The 1975, followed by their own sold out headlining UK tour which included stops at The Great Escape and London Calling. They’ll return to the states for their Lollapaloozadebut, ahead of their North American tour supporting Fontaines D.C. before returning to the UK and Europe for an extensive headline run. Stops this fall include the Palladium in Los Angeles on September 26th, the Salt Shed in Chicago on October 9th and the Paramount Theatre in Brooklyn on October 15th and 16th. The band will celebrate their album release tonight with a hometown show at Brooklyn’s iconic Baby’s All Right.
Purchase the album on vinyl, CD and cassette from Dirty Hit HERE.
Tour Dates
July 26 – Sheffield, UK @ Tramlines Fest
July 27 – Oxfordshire, UK @ Truck Fest
July 28 – Suffolk, UK @ Latitude Festival
August 1-4 – Chicago, IL @ Lollapalooza
Sep 20 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo *
Sep 21 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater *
Sep 22 – Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom *
Sep 24 – San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield *
Sep 26 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Palladium *
Sep 27 – San Diego, CA @ SOMA *
Sep 28 – Pomona, CA @ The Fox Theater *
Sep 30 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren *
Oct 2 – Englewood, CO @ Gothic Theatre *
Oct 4 – Lawrence, KS @ The Granada Theater *
Oct 5 – Omaha, NE @ Slowdown *
Oct 6 – Madison, WI @ The Sylvee *
Oct 8 – Minneapolis, MN @ The Fillmore Minneapolis *
Oct 9 – Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed *
Oct 11 – Toronto, ON @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre *
Oct 12 – Montreal, QC @ MTELUS *
Oct 13 – Boston, MA @ Roadrunner *
Oct 15 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount * (SOLD OUT)
Oct 16 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount *
Oct 18 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club * (SOLD OUT)
Oct 19 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club *
Oct 20 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore Philadelphia *
Nov 3 – Amsterdam, NL @ Bitterzoet
Nov 4 – Cologne, DE @ Blue Shell
Nov 6 – Berlin, DE @ Cassiopeia
Nov 7 – Hamburg, DE @ Molotow Skybar
Nov 9 – Warsaw, PL @ Klub Hybrydy
Nov 10 – Prague, CZ @ Cafe V Lese
Nov 11 – Munich, DE @ Orangehouse
Nov 13 – Milan, IT @ Bellezza
Nov 14 – Zurich, CH @ Exil
Nov 16 – Brussels, BE @ Witloof Bar
Nov 17 – Paris, FR @ Point Ephemere
Nov 19 – Bristol, UK @ The Fleece
Nov 21 – Manchester, UK @ Manchester Academy 3
Nov 22 – Glasgow, UK @ King Tuts
Nov 24 – Newcastle, UK @ The Cluny
Nov 25 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
Nov 26 – Nottingham, UK @ Bodega
Nov 28 – London, UK @ Scala
Nov 30 – Dublin, IE @ The Workman’s Club
Dec 1 – Galway, IE @ Roisin Dubh
Dec 2 – Belfast, UK @ Ulster Sports Club
* supporting Fontaines D.C.
Been Stellar by Gabe Long | Hi-Res Download
Tracklist:
01 Start Again
03 Pumpkin
04 Scream From New York, NY
05 Sweet
06 Can’t Look Away
07 Shimmer
08 Takedown
09 All In One
10 I Have The Answer
Like so many other dyed-in-the-wool New York bands, Been Stellar are transplants. Guitarist Skyler Knapp and vocalist Sam Slocum first met in their freshman year of high school a decade ago; members of the cross country team, they bonded over the band t-shirt Skyler was wearing and decided to start jamming together. In Michigan, they started performing under the Been Stellar name, but it wasn’t until the pair began studying at NYU, and met Brazilian-born guitarist Nando Dale, bass player Nico Brunstein and drummer Laila Wayans, that a sound started to coalesce. Despite working in wildly disparate styles – Nando and Skyler bonded over British bands like The Cribs; Nico was making electronic music, and Laila rave – the group bonded over a shared sense of humor, forming a motley crew based more on emotional compatibility than any rigid ideas of shared artistic sensibility.
Determined to break new sonic ground, the band embarked on a relentless practice schedule, even renting scrappy studios on days off during tours with Fontaines DC and Shame. After befriending him at SXSW, the band tapped producer Dan Carey (black midi, Wet Leg) to help coalesce the disparate elements of their sound that had been percolating: forceful, driving physicality; pop classicism; gnarled beauty; and a rich emotional core. The resulting 10-song album announces Been Stellar as gimlet-eyed chroniclers of contemporary youth, staring through noise and confusion into the dark heart of modern life. These songs embody the spirit of a city that makes and breaks its inhabitants on a daily basis – an irony befitting the album’s tone: Been Stellar’s preternatural ability to capture the disconnection that haunts New York with photorealist detail might just be the thing that vaults them into its pantheon.
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