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Indie Music Spotlight – Top Hard Rock Picks

by Joshua (J.Smo) Smotherman June 16, 2016 2:32 pm Tagged With: hard rock, indie music spotlight, top picks

The Rift – Annabel Lee

The Rift like making rock n roll.

Music has gotta to be from the heart and from your bones, all of our songs are written with this in mind. Sometimes great things can come out of a tragedy and that was how we began as musicians. We turned to music during a dark time in our lives and we’ve been rocking out ever since.”

Traditionally, a rift is an open space. It’s a place of possibility and promise. Los Angeles hard rock trio THE RIFT lives up to its moniker.

Bassist JOHN ANAGNOS says, “The name is the best way to describe the band, what we do, and the experience we portray live. The songs are meant to be an opening, and there’s a lot you can find within them.”

That openness has solidified the group–brothers ARIS ANAGNOS [vocals/guitar] and JOHN along with OVAIS MALIK [drums]–as one of Southern California’s most thrilling new rock upstarts. Since forming in 2009, the musicians have played alongside the likes of Exodus, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Misfits, and more as well as receiving nominations at the Hollywood Music Awards and Ventura County Music Awards. Now, 2016’s full-length debut INVENTIONS crystallizes their one-two punch of technically intricate instrumentation and hypnotic hard rook hooks evocative of Thirty Seconds To Mars, Stone Temple Pilots and Foo Fighters.

We wanted to make songs that hit hard, but you can sing along to at the same time,” adds ARIS. “Sometimes, we go bluesy-rock and other times there are tinges of punk/metal. We explore different styles while keeping a solid, real sound.”

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About Joshua (J.Smo) Smotherman

Joshua is a music business consultant currently serving as COO of Unlimited Sounds, a boutique publishing admin & consulting firm based in Northern California. He also serves as director of Pac Ave Records, a student-run record label. He is an archivist and curator via Indie Music Discovery.com, co-founded with C Bret Campbell in 2011. He is also a Father of 3 and an all purpose jedi... but before any of this, he was and still creates as an indie/DIY songwriter and producer. Connect on IG. Read full bio.

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