Words by K
It’s time for an earthly welcome to gloryBots and Dark Alien Pop, the uniquely inspired product of Jalal’s post-rock imagination, a solo project he describes as an amalgam of upbeat, post-punk and alien sonic textures.
Hello friends (and maybe foes?) of the Left Bank. You’ve never heard from me this early. To be fair, no one has heard from me this early with the exception of my mom and my dog, but here it is. I slept over 11 hours last night and am here to bring you the lovely tunes of Jalal Andre and his new full length album, Dark Alien Pop.
It’s like a darker version of Radiohead meets Jesus and Mary Chain—I can totally see this getting played in Berghain in the later hours. Hopefully I’ll even be there to celebrate // dance along.
[It’s] a crazy-cool universe where “aliens land while listening to OK Computer, meet Nine Inch Nails and Muse in a back alley, a fight breaks out and it’s all captured on video.”
Okay so we are on the same page because a little bit of Muse is definitely heard in there.
After overpaying his dues with “five or more” bands with horrible names he’d just as soon forget, Jalal Andre finally hit his stride fronting Seattle based rockers Echo Texture, releasing two albums and achieving some regional success. While he’s still part of that band, the singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist’s creative spirit needed something more.
The new album is multi-faceted as hell. As it turns out, Dark Alien Pop is a dynamic musical brand reflecting his longstanding interest in being more on the fringe than the mainstream – and a full-throttle embrace of instruments, grooves, atmospheres and trippy musical ideas.
“gloryBots began as a deliberate departure from the typical rock band format, with an intent to pursue a greater focus on theme development and multi-instrument arrangement. The project quickly evolved with the introduction of more alien sonic landscapes. The combination of melodic, pop-like vocals cast over haunting themes, alternate chord constructs and these frequent landscapes gave rise to the concept of my trademarked Dark Alien Pop, which would become the self-defined gloryBots style.”
Go ahead and spend this (very early) Friday morning waking up to the tunes of Jalal Andre. Listen to the single “Dream About Nothing” below x.