REVIEW: Gene Priest And The Cardinal Sin - Living To Die

When I moved back to TN a year ago, one of my biggest motivators for that move was all of the excellent music that comes out of this region and how I wanted to make the next chapter of my life becoming part of the awesome scene here.

Today out of the clear blue sky (or facebook) I got hit in the earhole with total reinforcement of my ideals in the form of a band calld Gene Priest And The Cardinal Sin.

The band's debut release entitled "Living To Die" was mixed by the late Scott Minor of the band Sparklehorse, and offers up 4 very brutally honest yet somewhat soft spoken well  produced (and well mixed I might add) tracks.

On the surface, all these tracks present themselves as desolate and dreary, but just like a lot of the nautical themes that are brought up in the songs, just like the life in the sea itself, as you break the surface and examine more closely (especially lyrically) you find something else entirely.

Musically, the whole vibe of the record has blends and pieces of bands like Wooden Wand, Murder By Death, or maybe even times Angels of Light, in fact I could see this record easily fitting on the Young God Records roster of releases. All of that said, Gene Priest and company are not a photo copy of any of these acts by any means, you can feel every ounce of honesty and integrity belted out in every single note.


I'm really excited to see and hear more from this project.
Now, here's the final nail in the coffin, you can take your lazy ass on over to LapDance Academy and download the whole damn record for free, and I highly suggest you do.

But, if you need that final push here's a video for the title track "Living To Die"





*edited*

I made an error in my Sparklehorse research, Scott Minor is alive and it was his partner Mark Linkous who passed. 
I apologize to Scott if he's reading.