Featured Artist of September 24, 2022
With the Album: Handclaps & Tambourines


Artist's Biography

LIBRARIANS WITH HICKEYS, having crawled from the wreckage of a post-industrial Akron, Ohio, decided to stick around and form a band. Because what else are you gonna do? Digging deep into the wellspring of power pop, jangle rock and that classic college rock sound for inspiration, LWH burst onto the Ohio -- and global -- pop rock stage in 2019 with the single “Black Velvet Dress” b/w “Alex" on the fledgling Big Stir Records, and became instant mainstays of the scene. By the time of the release of their acclaimed 2020 debut album, the doubly-ironically-titled LONG OVERDUE, not even the ongoing pandemic could stop their ascent. Without missing a beat, new singles including the hit "I Can't Stop Thinking About You" followed, signaling that there was much more from our Librarians in the stacks. And indeed, this fall will see the release of a new full-length record on BSR: HANDCLAPS & TAMBOURINES.

The band started off 2019 with their self-released debut single “Until There Was You” and “And Then She's Gone” which showcased the twin guitar jangle and chime of Ray Carmen (vocals, guitar) and Mike Crooker (guitar, vocals), the propulsive groove of Andrew Wilco (bass) and the rhythmic backbone of Rob Crossley (drums). On BSR's side of the ledger, credit goes to label founder Christina Bulbenko's keen midwestern ears for catching those tunes early on and recognizing the Librarians as kindred spirits in musical aesthetics, community ethos, and good old fashioned heart and soul. The band's subsequent breakthrough, and the tunes they've been offering up since that auspicious debut, more than bear her instincts out.

“For anyone out there who may still, for some unfathomable reason, question the power and the glory of the three-minute four-chord p-o-p song done right, “Black Velvet Dress” will in no way fail to raise you off your settee and shove things direct towards the nearest Volume UP knob,” opines Gary Pig Gold of The Rock and Roll Report. “Nostalgic? No. The word would be timeless.” We couldn't agree more, and for Librarians With Hickeys, that time is clearly now. Keep your eyes and ears open for the new single and video "Ghost Singer" and the official release details of HANDCLAPS & TAMBOURINES, out in October 2022.


About the Album

It's the followup to their breakout debut album LONG OVERDUE and delivers all the hooks, melodies, spiraling guitars and rhythmic charge that the first record, as well as last year's hit double A-side teaser single “I Can't Stop Thinking About You” and “Stumbling Down Memory Lane” -- both included here – have left fans worldwide anticipating.

There's something in a name, and Akron, Ohio-based indie popsters LIBRARIANS WITH HICKEYS both made and earned theirs in 2020 with a string of hit singles and their acclaimed debut album LONG OVERDUE on Big Stir Records. On a pop rock scene where too many otherwise fine bands stick to the playbook of one particular subgenre or decade, our Librarians – singer/guitarist Ray Carmen, lead guitarist/vocalist Mike Crooker, bassist Andrew Wilco and drummer Rob Crossley -- write, play, sing and record like they have shelf upon shelf of pop-rock history tomes at their disposal. As for the eyebrow-raising “With Hickeys” bit, if it bespeaks a certain amorousness, that passion is there in the grooves of the band's tunes too: to paraphrase Jonathan Richman, they're in love with modern rock and roll, and you can hear it on the new album HANDCLAPS & TAMBOURINES. LWH themselves call the new album “the perfect album for your next rock-and-roll book club meeting with the band's melodic muscular indie pop (cofee and snacks not included)” and true to their word, they deliver twelve tracks that draw on their encyclopedic engagement with the full and rich history of rock with hooks, harmonies, ringing guitars and (yes) handclaps and tambourines. Confronting the twin specters of the so-called “second album syndrome” and the protracted pandemic era head-on, the band recorded an entire second album, and then threw it out. Handclaps & Tambourines is actually their third album – meaning we can avoid the dreaded term “sophomore” – but we’re calling it their second one. Got it? Good. Now let's head into the stacks and peruse the tracks – and sounds – on offer.

Is it power-pop? The answer is an emphatic yes, but a timeless variety that's delightfully impossible to pin to any timeframe. The band's trademark soundscape – a twin-guitar sheen worthy of The Church or the Chameleons topped by Carmen's inviting tenor coo – evoke the heights of '80s college rock. It's abundantly displayed on songs like the anthemic garage-wall-of-sound of “Can’t Wait ‘Till Summer” with its ringing harmonics, and the 2021 hit “I Can't Stop Thinking About You,” where the shimmering rif and the vocal melody chase each other to halcyon heights. But you'll hear '90s indie rock lovingly sound-checked on tracks like the instantly memorable lead single “Ghost Singer” (with Christina Bulbenko and Rex Broome of The Armoires joining Crooker as the ethereal Greek chorus) and “I See You” (just listen to that rhythm section kick).

Elsewhere the sounds of the glitter-pop '70s flamboyantly manifest themselves: “Lady Overdrive”’s glam-rock will wash you out to sea in a tidal wave of woozy feedback and lead guitarist Mike Crooker's wah-wah guitar. Speaking of glam, Crooker makes his lead vocal debut on “Over You” (glitter, high heeled boots and face paint not included)! And there are nods aplenty to the '60s roots of the form of which LWH are such scholars and masters, as on the Rec-Room Crew pop of “Me And My Big Mouth”, inspired by Carmen’s obsession with the Monkees.

Be sure and listen, too, for Ray’s whirly tube solo on the Banana Splits-trapped-on-a-merry-go-round psychedelic bubblegum pop of “Fairground”. And the opening barnstormer “I Better Get Home” rocks a 60’s Hammond organ and cheerleaders sugared-up on… something (probably Starbucks).

Lyrically, too, there's a wistful tinge of times gone by, manifesting itself itself in the fine ballads that are among the record's most timeless passages. “Stumbling Down Memory Lane” is a poignant ballad about the uncertainty of getting older in a troubled world, missing musical icons who are no longer with us, and friendships torn apart by the the political landscape of 2016-2022. “The Last Days Of Summer” is a lush autumnal track about welcoming the changing of the seasons, and features the haunting viola of Larysa Bulbenko (The Armoires) lending the tune a pastoral, British folk rock feel. And “When We Were Young” is the band’s lighter-waving anthem – a look back at their younger days when they could stay out all night playing in bars with their friends and then get up and go to work the next day on two or three hours of sleep. Like the album's sound, it's a portrait of then, now, and the days between all at once.

HANDCLAPS & TAMBOURINES is a worthy successor to Long Overdue, proving that even though they're old enough to know better, they still play way too loud for the local library’s summer reading club party. But the global indie pop scene knows what to expect from LIBRARIANS WITH HICKEYS, and the new album delivers it in volumes. Turn it up, because it's one for the ages... and, with its kaleidoscope of sounds and classic songwriting transcending the generations, one for all ages.

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