Hello Readers,
Welcome back to SWT. Today, we’re excited to talk about an energetic new band and album – Kingston, New York-based band Hide and Shine’s sophomore album, The Red Core, which comes out Friday, June 20. It’s an impressive collection of songs from start to finish, with an epic sonic journey that whips you around like a speeding roller coaster. Each song offers its own captivating alternative rock textures and emotional vocals, adding to the overall journey. It has a punk spirit in sound and lyrics that can ramp up or down at a moment’s notice. The first description made of Hide and Shine was “An Art Death Indie Post-Punk Country Rock Alternative,” and we think it’s a good start at describing the band’s genre fluidity.
“Self-describing the sound of your own songs can be really hard. I find this music to be heavy yet hopeful, artsy but still catchy,” singer-songwriter Chris Kelly tells SWT. “Spiritual Punk. Overdriven, yes, yet some songs make me cry the heart straight out of my chest.”
We agree, quite the sonic overstimulation.
Adds Kelly, “There are songs out there that burrow deep into me and pull out something I didn’t know was there. Sometimes they pull a great, sudden explosion of emotion. I’d like one of our songs to do that for someone.”
Count us as one.
The seeds for the band began to sprout in 2022 when Kelly says he received “a psychic download of 50 song ideas.” He shared them with drummer Michael Chambers after their first “random” meeting—a dinner set up by their wives. What started as a fun project turned into something serious. They brought in Chris Ferguson to complete their trio.
In 2024, they released their debut album, Soft Machines, which the late Steve Albini notably mixed at his Electrical Audio studios. On the new release, David Andersen takes over for Chris Ferguson as the band’s new bassist.
According to the new album’s press release, the band’s music has the “raw, literary punk of The Replacements, the sweet yet monstrous attack of Dinosaur Jr., the dark introspection of Radiohead, and noticeable nods to grunge, classic metal, classic country, and classic rock.”
For The Red Core, the band turned to veteran producer Matt Wallace – yes, that Matt Wallace, who produced The Replacements’ 1989 Don’t Tell A Soul, as well as Faith No More, Maroon 5, O.A.R., and Train). It builds and expands on the best parts of Soft Machines while taking the band to new rock dimensions.
According to the album’s press release, the album’s lyrics touch on exotic themes such as “alchemy, UFO/religious experiences, lucid dreaming, and inter-dimensional existence. There is a deep note of social empathy as well, but it never emerges as ‘political.’ It’s more concerned with humanity, and it’s buried under poetry.”
“It honestly was not until the record was finished, and the vinyl was being pressed, that I realized there was a theme to this album: Fiery Transformation,” says Kelly. “I was looking at the lyrics and noticed that almost every song has some reference to fire or metamorphosis.”
“At some point last winter, I had scribbled ‘The Red Core’ in a notebook and knew that was the album title. The artwork ‘randomly’ grabbed my eye because it looked like ‘The Red Core.’ It turned out to be a William Blake painting—someone well-versed in alchemy and transformation. I am consistently amazed how this stuff all comes together unconsciously. It’s a weird, weird thing, this life.”
Adds Wallace via press release, “Hide and Shine have envisioned, performed, and recorded an album that is equal parts muscular and brutal instrumentation pushing against haunting and catchy melodies and lyrics…The entire world should have the opportunity to be moved by Hide and Shine.”
For the recording of The Red Core, the band started from scratch to fully utilize the talent of their new bass player. Kelly made demo recordings of 19 new songs, opting to put aside the songs they had previously created.
“I’m a believer that songs come from the same place as dreams—that I don’t have any control over what pictures they paint,” says Kelly. “I just let them do their thing and then stand back and say, ‘what the hell does that mean?’”
Below, Kelly discusses the making of the album and the inspiration for a couple of songs with SWT:
“Hemorrhage and Heal” Inspiration
“‘Hemorrhage and Heal'” speaks to me of the way modern humans are constantly seeking to fix something within themselves. I respect the continued effort to become a better human, but “fixing” is what junkies do. I don’t know what becomes of the subject in this song. I hope he stops trying to fix and finds the real good stuff.”
“Love in the Neutral Zone” Inspiration
“‘Love in the Neutral Zone’ turned out to be some kind of post-apocalyptic love song. It says to me that even when the circumstances of existence become so unbelievably scorched and obliterated, there is still hope, awe, marvel. I truly believe that humanity is finding its way toward something better.”
Songwriting In Reverse
“All of the songs operate on ‘reverse inspiration.’” The songs and lyrics evolve organically over time, and at some point, we hear what the song has become, and we get inspired. It’s as if we are just acting as a medium, writing down the songs, and when they are done saying what they want to say, we get excited to play them.”
The People Who Inspired The Songs
“I really think that it’s the people we’ve played or collaborated with throughout our lives that have the most influence on our sound. It’s not just what we’ve listened to. Both Michael and I were immersed in the NYC indie/post-punk/alternative/underground scene through the 90s/2000s. I know that energy is still inside of us. We retain a little piece of everybody we worked with.”
Recording Process
“Recording these songs is as intuitive as writing them. At some point, when the music is still in its ethereal state, we start recording it—just put up mics and record. There was no striving for perfection, just capturing the image of what the songs were saying and finishing them pretty quickly. Matt Wallace was genuinely enthused to work with these songs, even though by most standards, they were raw. He heard the songs for what they were and really nurtured them with care, preserving their individual voices, but still making a very cohesive album.”
Here’s the tracklist for The Red Core:
- Hemorrhage and Heal
- I Lived in the Light
- Look Terrified
- Metamorphosis
- Can’t Wait to Catch Fire
- Love in the Neutral Zone
- Heaven on Sunday
- Fire Survivors
- Another Mission to Mars
- I’m in Love
- We Like Falling Down
- The Ones Left Behind
- Untitled Paradise
- My Mirror Moon
Like what you’ve heard? Listen to more and find out more here:
Bandcamp: hideandshine.bandcamp.com/
Spotify: Hide and Shine on Spotify
YouTube: youtube.com/@HideandShine-Band
Instagram: instagram.com/hideandshineband
Facebook: Hide And Shine on Facebook
Happy listening!
Joshua is co-founder of Scummy Water Tower. He’s freelanced for a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including: Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Guitar World, MTV News, Grammy.com, Chicago Magazine, Milwaukee Magazine, MKE Lifestyle, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, A.V. Club, SPIN, Alternative Press, Under the Radar, Paste, PopMatters, American Songwriter, and Relix. You can email him at josh@scummywatertower.com.
