The frontman for Angel Island, Justin Goldman, has one of those voices that feels right at home taking on spidery melodies about heartbreak. One part Andrew Goldfarb (the Slow Poisoner) and one part Brett Anderson (Suede), Goldman’s voice leads the charge on churning potboilers like “Kicking & Screaming” as well as more uptempo, tambourine-driven fare like “What It Means, Where It All Comes From.” Recommended if you like the sounds of their Shit Krystal labelmates, Billy & Dolly.
–KEVIN SEAL (Noise Pop 2011)
Piling layers upon layers of imagery, Justin Goldman creates a lyrical world not unlike a Dylan-esque acid trip (if Bobby wrote more songs about girls, anyway).
Goldman fronts the San Francisco-based band Angel Island, laying bare his emotions with painfully autobiographical lyrics one moment before building up walls of psychedelic metaphor to hide behind next. Joined by guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Pascal Garneau and Robert Jakubs on drums, Angel Island has a sound that echoes with 20th century rock and pop as if filtered through each decade, picking up strange bedfellows along the way. A 6/8 dancehall ballad suddenly shifts into nineties shoe-gazer territory and finishes with a Moog synthesizer solo that would make Linda McCartney blush—all in one song lasting under three minutes.
Angel Island’s first recorded effort, FOUR SONG EP, was released in October of 2009 and is currently available as a free download in multiple digital formats at angelisland.bandcamp.com. The EP was self-produced and a short run of CD’s were printed and given away to friends and fans at shows.
Fall 2010 saw the release of ANGEL ISLAND, which features two new songs, “Harmony” and “Kicking & Screaming” and two songs remixed from the previous EP. The group teamed up with audio wizard Karl Derfler (Tom Waits, Roky Erickson) in a renovated old-time schoolhouse in Sebastopol, CA to mix the EP which was released digitally on the “too big to fail” San Francisco label ShitKrystal Records.
CONTACT for booking and publicity
Press docs:
PDF — Angel Island bio
Word — Angel Island bioHi-Res Press Photo:
Angel Island 8x10 (150 dpi)
Reviews:
Rickshaw Stop 5/7/2011 | Kata Rokkar
“Particularly with the dance-inducing Harmony, Angel Island made for not only a good warm up band for Stilts, but forced members of the audience to pay better attention to a blatantly talented rock band.“
Angel Island EP review | East Bay Express Local Licks
“[Justin Goldman] apparently penned all five songs himself, and his intonation makes each of them sound tense. The arrangements, in contrast, are hooky and clean.”