Indie Pulse Music : Tom Keifer’s “Hype”

Set to the pace of a grinding groove that recalls both White Zombie and Soundgarden simultaneously (without borrowing too much from either influence), the guitars that come crashing through in full-color stereo sound in Tom Keifer’s “Hype” are as thick and smoking as they come, but make no mistake about it – they’re wholly organic, both in their natural tonality and in the fashion they’re presented to us in this master mix.

URL: http://www.tomkeifer.com/

In “Hype,” Keifer reminds us that righteous riffing is, and always will be, the cornerstone of every great rock song in history, and if you didn’t already know that this player and his band have no time or space for filler in their music, I think you’re going to get a clue as to what their aesthetical ethics are truly made of after hearing this track, and seeing its video, for yourself.

I was only somewhat familiar with Tom Keifer and #keiferband prior to getting my hands on a copy of “Hype” and its parent album Rise just recently, but even without taking into consideration how heavy a rock song it is, I’m still planning on keeping up with their future output from now on. Keifer is coming into the spotlight at a time for rock music that has seen more underwhelming content than it has any of the chest-beating gems that made the genre great in the first place, and seeing as he’s one of the only artists bringing any sort of heat into the studio nowadays, I think it would be prudent of rockers everywhere to keep a close eye on his work in this unfolding decade.

Mindy McCall