Great Ideas in Action, the third album by Chicago-based
rock act Archie Powell & the Exports, brims with power-pop hooks at every
turn-most of them arriving courtesy of Powell's own ultra-melodic guitar
work...while an ever-escalating energy level makes the whole thing feel as
urgent as a real-time news crawl. Billboard Magazine
Has bemused cynicism and ennui ever been so fun? Archie
Powell & the Exports have made a career of grafting prismatic power pop and
a sardonic, dark worldview into guileless songs with hooks galore. Great
Ideas in Action is the band’s third release of deceptively
sophisticated songs and the response has been stellar.
After the fine folks at World Cafe called the album "a
soundtrack to summer", they booked a performance and interview, the band
were featured on Esquire's Best New Songs online and were featured on Spinner's
Listening Party. A Billboard review is on the way, and they've received raves
from great weeklies like Nuvo Weekly, Providence Phoenix and Time Out Chicago
among others. Here is what Chicago's Red Eye had to say "Catchy songs
don't just materialize out of thin air. Yet local rockers Archie Powell and the
Exports crank out clever, crazily infectious songs like its no big deal."
They gave it a perfect 4 out of 4 stars. The Lincoln Journal Star wrote
"Archie Powell & The Exports is a Chicago rock ‘n' roll band that
operates in poppy territory but brings the bite with the words, delivering
painfully observant lyrics right out of the Elvis Costello school.
In the meantime, college radio stations are reacting, the
record debuted in the CMJ Top 200 last week and jumped to #129 this week. The
band hit the road in late April and made their way east, they continue playing
US dates before hitting a two week stand in Canada.
Archie Powell makes songcraft look simple; he is incapable
of writing an un-danceable tune, whether he turns a jaundiced eye on the
culture of self-medication or whipping up a 3 minute heist story. Blink and
it's killer catchy rock, blink twice and it's social commentary that is sad,
biting, funny but ultimately incredibly honest. Powell’s writing could easily
come from someone twice his age but it never feels studied – his humanity just
shines through and demolishes any doubts about where he stands.
It’s not hard to find stories in the news about the
thousands of debt-ridden young people who are getting out of college and
finding that there is nothing out there for them. While Archie claims he was an
art student and knew what he was getting into, he’s written a pretty great
protest song for his peers in “Job Fair”, singing “Hey baby, please can you cut
some slack? You know I’ll settle up tomorrow if you got my back, I’ve been
running out of luck cuz it’s about who you know, and all my resumes are fake and
I don’t know where to go.”
The album was produced, engineered and mixed by Justin
Perkins (formerly of Yesterday’s Kids, The Obsoletes and Screeching Weasel) at
Howl Street Studios and The Mystery Room in Milwaukee during the fall of 2011.
Archie Powell & the Exports on Tour:
May 9 Flask Lounge Portland,
ME
May 10 Lucky Dog Music Hall Worcester, MA
May 11, Mohawk Place Buffalo,
NY
May 13 Strega Cafe
St. Catharines, ON
May 14 The
Brass London, ON
May 15 Casbah
Hamilton, ON
May 16 Cafe Deckuf
Ottawa, ON
May 17 Divan Orange Montreal,
QC
May 19 Plan B Moncton, NB
May 20 Baba’s
Lounge
Charlottetown, PE
May 21, Falls Brook
Centre Knowlesville,
NB
May 22 The Spill Cafe Peterborough, ON
May 24 The Mansion Kingston,
ON
May 25 The Legendary Horseshoe
Tavern Toronto, ON
May 27 Mulligans Pub Grand Rapids, MI
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