Photo by Tina Korhonen © 2016, all rights reserved.
Goldray, who released their critically acclaimed debut album, Rising in 2017, are back with a double a-side single release on 29th May and we are delighted to announce that we will have a video exclusive on the 28th, so keep your eyes pealed. How Do You Know and the thunderous Oz are taken from their second album Feel The Change, which is scheduled for release on the 31st July. Rockshot will be talking to them about the album and their plans to hit the road again, so please look out for that interview prior to the album release. That’s a lot of news in two sentences!
2020 was looking to be the biggest year yet for Kenwyn House (Reef) and Leah Rasmussen (EMI, Bedrock, Renaissance) AKA Goldray, before the pandemic hit, however I am sure that this is a minor stall for Goldray. Having been in and out of the studio for the past 18 months, this double-a-side release is a massive return for the band, who’s 2017 debut album Rising was met with huge acclaim and excitement from the critics and catapulted them to be one of the most exciting new rock bands of recent times. When venues can be packed out again and Festivals run, Goldray would grace any stage. In the mean time this album will allow you to take a psychedelic trip to a more carefree world.
Sharing a songwriting vision blending psych and prog experimental arrangements together with etheric, yet powerful female vocals, House and Rasmussen embarked on the creation of Goldray, firstly as an experimental side project for the pair that soon grew into an all-consuming passion. With a clear identity both musically and visually, Goldray pulls inspiration from the late 1960s and early 1970s and are very much at the centre of the current emerging psych-rock scene.
Photo by Tina Korhonen, 2020. All rights reserved
Their new music exudes their inspiration and passion. How Do You Know, builds through the entirety of its four-minutes demonstrating Rasmussen huge range and power in her vocal ending with a huge crescendo. With Kenwyn’s delicious opening riff full of eastern promise, the music is shoegaze gold and Leah’s vocal and a very Jefferson Airplane chorus.
How Do You Know is epic despite being just over four minutes long. Oz, however, is a monster seven-minute-plus track driven through House’s incredible guitar playing, the song is a journey of rock and psych, with plenty of vibrato, building with power to then dropping into a feeling of surreal psychedelia to then being slapped back in the face with the thunderous riff!
Photo by Tina Korhonen, 2020. All rights reserved
The band have garnered a formidable reputation live with performances at Glastonbury, Bestival, Download, Ramblin’ Man, HRH, Camden Rocks Festival and various headline shows over the past three years in the UK and Europe. The band (who tour as a four-piece) ensure the ethos, look and feel of the show emanates the same feeling as the music. Visually striking with vocalist Rasmussen looking resplendent (described in a live review by Prog magazine in 2018 as “… the high priestess of hard rock”), and House’s playing ever more powerful and irresistibly hooky, yet still somehow sliding into psychedelic induced hypnosis ensures the live shows are a sensory overload! Goldray are putting the Glam back into Rock.
New live shows will be announced imminently.
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