AM Clouds - Rainmaker
PREMIERE | AM CLOUDS UNVEIL ‘RAINMAKER’
Oregon indie-rock outfit AM Clouds introduce the music video for “Rainmaker,” the title track from their recently released debut LP. Recorded at the Firing Room in Bend, Oregon, the album was engineered by Dayne Wood and mixed by Jeff Stuart Saltzman.
AM Clouds
Made up of Bruce Troy Moon (lead vocals, lead guitar), Graham Boostrom (rhythm guitar, vocals), Pete Ficht (bass, keys, vocals), and Dan Paggi (drums, vocals), AM Clouds’ sound blend elements of edgy indie-rock with psych-rock noise jams, conjuring up comparisons to Neil Young, Meat Puppets, Tom Petty, and Uncle Tupelo. It’s a sound the band calls “high desert rock.”
Talking about the video, the band says, “Our first video is for the title track of our debut full-length album – a pop-rock love song that morphs into an epic technicolor psych jam. Dig it!”
Borrowing their name – AM Clouds – from the ever-present radio and television weather forecasts for the area, the band has shared the stage with Mother Hips and King Black Acid, Portland’s psych-rock innovators.
Paggi’s finessed drumming during the mind-blowing harmonics establishes a grand foundation, as well as providing expansive fills.
“Rainmaker” opens on low-slung pop-rock guitars flowing into a throbbing rhythm composed of tight percussion and a plump, vibrating bassline. Gleaming guitars fill the chorus with frothy colors, as Moon’s dulcet tenor doles out deliciously soaring tones. A gorgeously building bridge leads to lustrous guitar inflections topped by creamy, proximate vocals.
As the guitars take over, a piercing lead guitar infuses the melody with searing, dirty-lite incandescence full of psych-rock-laced colors. Imagine the Doors covering CSN&Y and you gain an idea of what to expect, only heavier, more visceral, and with beaucoup layers of hallucinogenic guitars. Paggi’s finessed drumming during the mind-blowing harmonics establishes a grand foundation, as well as providing expansive fills.
The video’s kaleidoscopic light show is intoxicating, imbuing the music with mood-altering, swirling flashes of illumination.
With “Rainmaker,” AM Clouds deliver wonderful pop-rock slowly transforming to a stylish surreal display of superb psych-rock. AM Clouds definitely crush it on “Rainmaker.”
