Friday, October 28, 2011

Apteka debut track from LP "Gargoyle Days" on Dumbing of America, prepare for album release

Apteka debut "Striking Violet" from upcoming LP Gargoyle Days on Dumbing of America.
Their songs build in a crescendo of sweat and beauty, creating epic landscapes that have left me with permanent goosebumps...

Embracing the coming darkness of a Chicago winter, Apteka's debut LP, Gargoyle Days is awash in captivating reverb, swirling melodies and soaring, anthemic refrains and the release is celebrated with a special, Chicago Halloween show.

with Sybris, The Bingers, Touched by Ghoul

Watch the release video for Gargoyle Days to hear the title track from the new LP.
For more music, check out this video featuring Apteka scoring Shepard Fairey and Obey and give a listen to the release named one of the Top 2010 albums from Chicago Indies by the Chicago Tribune, the Traitors 7".

Press praise for Apteka
With a heady mix of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, the epiphanal rush of shoegaze, with the intensity of Jane’s Addiction they’re truly the great band that’s flown under your radar too long.
The Dumbing of America
 
An increasingly commanding quartet that embraces the power of guitar drone, tribal drumming and the deep, shoegaze-era swoon.
Chicago Tribune, Traitors 7” Top 2010 albums from Chicago Indies
 
If snowstorms shed sparks or cicadas caught fire. If you longed so much for something that you could never sleep again. Or if all your friends started playing electric guitars at once.
Said the Gramophone
 
With its chiming guitar, churning rhythms, expansive atmospherics, and keening, melodic vocals, the song presses the same buttons as classic Ride. I expect good things from this band, and soon.
Chicago Reader
 
This scrappy Chicago rock band takes the DIY-values of Pavement, the wide-eyed excitability of Dinosaur Jr. and the frantic, flourished drumming of Keith Moon, tosses it all into a blended, and slathers it with a thick coating of shoegazer fuzz that would make My Bloody Valentine proud…a sonic maelstrom of energy blasting through your speakers, all teetering guitar and an ambiance that makes it sound as if it was recorded during the middle of a huge blizzard.
The Brown Noise

Apteka weaves a curious star bound tapestry that falls between the generic staples of shoe gaze, tear arsing shimmer toned power pop and fringe flicking shade adorned lysergic psyche groove, the thumping ‘cicada song’ sound like a wired and antagonised early career Ride re-sculpturing discarded Barrett Floyd / 13th Floor Elevators motifs while ‘the sheet’ it seems is currently streets ahead on the listening count though sadly the blighter refused to play for us - gremlins in the machinery I gather.
Losing Today
 
Take the breathiness of Stoned And Dethroned era Jesus and Mary Chain and English shoegazer harmonies, along with an album-consistent palpitating beat. Best of all is the way the whole track leads somewhere - soft beginnings to strongly strummed reverb drenched guitars, to fierce and sheathing keys, to - finally - an amalgamation of all the above. This song, in particular, is four minutes of satisfaction.
Drone Magazine on “If You Were Here”

About Apteka
Apteka is Adam Lukas, Dino Balocchi, Jesse Hozeny, and Dave Narey. We are from Chicago. We play rock music. We like large kick drums, tube amplification, and face melting.


Gargoyle Days
gargoyle days
striking violet  
in clouds
where days go
this time
voices  
gravesend
monterey
we know time

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