Mike Sands, the New York-born, Nashville-based singer-songwriter whose restless creative spirit has been carving out his own corner of Alternative Americana Rock for over two decades, releases his powerful new single “Abandoned” today, the lead track from his forthcoming seventh studio album ‘Happy Hour,’ due July 10 on JIB Machine Records. Produced by Lincoln Parrish, the celebrated Nashville producer best known for his work with Cage the Elephant, and recorded at Siena Studios on Music Row, ‘Happy Hour’ is the most fully realised and emotionally wide-ranging record of Sands’ career, a twelve-track collection that moves between gritty rock swagger and plainspoken Americana storytelling with the ease of a man who has finally found the exact sound he has been reaching for.
“Abandoned” sets the tone with urgent, kinetic energy. “Are you a breakthrough or a breakdown / Sometimes they both feel the same,” Sands sings, and in that couplet sits the whole emotional territory the album inhabits: the fine and shifting line between falling apart and breaking through, the way rumours and complications pile up, the way a person ends up on a stranger’s couch at the bottom of everything, and the stubborn, quietly heroic decision to keep looking for good in every situation anyway. It is the kind of lyric that hits differently depending on where you are in life, which is exactly the mark of the best Americana writing.
Listen on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/track/7oXsCvtCgIy2hpvXPsb1vr?si=e38d5c8127784b9f&nd=1&dlsi=353c696db5fd4497
Sands describes his sound as what happens when a New York alternative rock upbringing collides with the soul and grit of the American South, the result of loving to rock like Sammy Hagar while writing like Jason Isbell and refusing to choose between the two. ‘Happy Hour’ delivers on that combination across twelve tracks structured as two sides in the classic vinyl tradition. Side A opens with “Foolish Heart” and moves through “Thoughts and Theories,” “Blue Anemone,” “Vision,” “Questions,” and “Strip the Paint,” the latter built around one of the album’s most arresting images: “We can choose to make a brand new start / But it won’t erase things we’ve already made / You can strip the paint / Add a new coat and make it pretty / But it won’t hide what’s underneath.” Side B carries the emotional weight of the record’s deeper themes through “Abandoned,” “Save Me Save Myself,” “Forgetting About Me,” “Moving in Circles,” “Miss Your Love,” and the title track, a warm and wistful invitation to sit still for a moment and let time do its work.
The album was engineered by Jordan Logue, with all guitars played by Kelby Ray, drums and percussion by Sam Brown, background vocals by Rachael Leigh, and mixing by John Constable. Mastering was handled by the renowned Michael Fossenkemper. The result is a record that sounds both lived-in and alive, rooted in the craft and camaraderie of Nashville’s Music Row while carrying the edge and emotional directness of an artist who came up playing clubs in New York and has never lost that hunger.
TOUR DATES
Jul 10 — Cleveland, OH (Album Release Show)
Aug 2 — Denver, CO
Aug 23 — Las Vegas, NV
Sep 13 — New Haven, CT
Sep 20 — Nashville, TN
https://mikesands.bandcamp.com