With Dead Day Revolution it's best to just toss aside the usual hyphenated descriptions, sub-genres and categories that are all but a plague in music these days. The Los Angeles band has many stylistic colors, tones and flavors within their sound, but it all flies under the bold and proud banner of rock'n'roll. That's evident throughout their stunning 11-song debut album, On Our Own. The trio of Mike Sandoz (vocals, guitar and primary songwriter), Skeeter Joplin (drums) and Cristian Sturba (bass) rock with an undeniable fury through its core of seven tough-punching tracks that echo the best and hardest acts that came before with a trademark take all their own. They also seamlessly shift from acoustic atmospherics and crackling electricity on "Bury My Soul" and summon up soaring magnificence on "Wait." From the taut opener "Sister" to the pummeling closer "Vampire Blues," it's clear "there’s a real intelligence, a high musical rock'n’roll IQ going on here," notes Devon Jackson, freelance music journalist for Rolling Stone, Village Voice and Entertainment Weekly. And found within the lyrics is an inspiring message of how to rise from even the deepest depths, fight for yourself and triumph as implied by the name Dead Day Revolution. Sandoz arrived in Los Angeles five years ago and quickly started "a band coming to kick in your door," as That Music Magazine says of the group, and soon "rocked the foundations" (Examiner) of the city's top venues like the Troubadour, Viper Room, Whisky a Go Go, House of Blues and others. As DDR began tracking the songs for On Our Own with producer Larry Goetz they earned high praise in the media after posting them on Reverbnation. "You gotta love a band with the word Revolution in it," noted MuzikReviews.com. "It just slaps you in the face like a can of Rock Juice first thing in the morning. The music of Dead Day Revolution will have the same effect on you. It rocks, it's fresh, and with only two explosive tracks so far they certainly got our attention." From the beginning Dead Day Revolution has avidly worked the Internet and social media and touted their gigs. As a result they've been featured on radio and in the press plus landed on the cover Regional Musician magazine, become "fast rising princes of punk-influenced rock‘n'roll" (Subba-Cultcha.com) and primed the pump for world conquest when On Our Own hits the street. So it's no surprise when That Music Magazine predicts "it's only a matter of time" until Dead Day Revolution wins over the masses with their bracing, take no prisoners sonic boom. Sandoz credits their swift ascent as much to how they play their music as how it sounds and what they have to say. "There’s only one rule in rock'n'roll,” he concludes, “and that’s to say what you want and mean it.”
