Tag: review

Categories
Bountiful Hearts

Pitfire Review

I’m grateful for all the positive press for Keep It Wild! The EP is available to stream everywhere and if you haven’t seen the video yet, it’s here. Check out this great review from Pitfire:

Mr. Fregoso has been hanging around in the indie rock underground of Berlin for a long time and has been working on this project with the long name for about two years. This small three-song EP shows that you can discover happy pieces between punk, indie and something glamorous with this group.

The opening title track sounds a bit like Dead To Me or something, and it’s a lot of fun. Crooked vocals, self-hating lyrics, tempo and punk guitars, it all puts you in a good mood. It gets a little wilder afterwards with the quasi-glam track «Belarus», where the name of this beautiful country is repeated endlessly in the chorus and one is also reminded of 80s glitter rock. The bouncer “Out of Key” also sounds chaotic and wild, which shakes you up with really appropriately weird indie vocals and quasi-Libertine memories. After that, a nice acoustic piece sung in Spanish is included on my promo copy. Crude but nice.

I hadn’t heard of Fregoso before, but this is a fun thing in every sense. Moody and energetic 10 minutes with sometimes wild singing. Cool!

If you made it this far, here’s wishing you a fantastic weekend! ☀️

Categories
Bountiful Hearts

Westzeit Review

Wonderful print review of Keep It Wild from Westzeit. Read the translation below and watch the video for the song here. 

“Keep It Wild” is an EP, but also a ‘Best of Album’. Not a ‘best of’ album, mind you, but a selection of songs from a record that should have been released in 2009. Nathaniel Fregoso, frontman of The Blood Arm, had so much on his plate with his band that the half-finished album disappeared into producer David Newton‘s drawer. In the lockdown of 2020, Berlin-based Fregoso rediscovered the songs and decided to compile some of them into an EP. In view of the original time of its creation, the result logically exudes the charm of the noughties: the title track sounds like a rough version of Franz Ferdinand, “Belarus” has the pop appeal of the Kaiser Chiefs, while “Out Of Key” is more in the The Strokes notch. Also included, at least on the promo: A beautiful cover of “Cuando calienta el sol”, originally published in 1961.

Categories
Bountiful Hearts

Thoughts Words Action

What a great way to start the week! Thank you Thoughts Words Action for this fantastic review of the Keep It Wild EP. Read an excerpt of the review below and don’t forget to watch the video here.

“…it’s a perfect release to start the working week with, mainly because each composition is a pure rager from beginning to end. Perhaps it possesses only four songs, but that’s enough to get the idea about Thee Nathaniel Fregoso & The Bountiful Hearts. I wasn’t familiar with the band before, but I have to admit Keep It Wild easily became part of my daily playlist. There’s something about this material that keeps me spinning it almost repetitiously.

Thee Nathaniel Fregoso & The Bountiful Hearts also incorporate a healthy dosage of power pop, classic pop, indie pop, and psychedelic music. Maybe the introductory piece, Keep It Wild, commences with abrasive guitars and fast beats, but the band immediately slows down the pace on the second composition, which bursts with pop sensibilities from scratch to finish. Thee Nathaniel Fregoso & The Bountiful Hearts keep their sound as versatile as possible, so you will love both songs no matter which genre you prefer.

The band returns to rock’n’roll waters in the third composition. It is probably the shortest of the four presented numbers. Thee Nathaniel Fregoso & The Bountiful Hearts demonstrate how rock’n’roll tunes can sound catchy, anthemic, and entertainful, even if they’re under two minutes. It’s a perfect track for those listeners who don’t like wasting time on longevous intros, solos, or any other unnecessary things that sometimes spoil the listening experience. Thee Nathaniel Fregoso & The Bountiful Hearts sang the fourth composition in Spanish, and it’s a perfect outro solely performed on acoustic guitar.”