Michael Grant & The Assassins - Always The Villain

[Stefan]

 

From Frontiers:

Michael Grant & The Assassins will release their debut album, "Always The Villain" on July 10, 2020!

Frontiers Music Srl is thrilled to announce the release of “Always The Villain”, the debut album from Michael Grant & The Assassins. Michael Grant & The Assassins play a diverse and exciting brand of hard rock music incorporating elements from alternative rock and metal, while exploring different textures, genres, and influences. Band mastermind Michael Grant (who plays all instruments on the album) creates a sound that is intense, heavily melodic, and anthemic. 

Of the making of the album, Grant says, "It took well over a year to record “Always The Villain”. There was such a massive learning curve in the actual recording process for me to be able to deliver. I had to write, arrange, record, produce everything as well as play all of the instruments myself. I believe recording this way truly helped in bringing to fruition my full musical vision and signature sound. I couldn’t be more happy with the end results and I really loved recording this way."

On first single and video, 'Red Light Run', Grant says it is "about a beautiful, broken-hearted girl's backfiring tale of revenge by way of sex, drugs and excess. Of course the song goes even deeper than that and the video is suggestive of all of this." 

In the works since 2018, "Always The Villain" is a labor of love for this established talent. Prior to The Assassins, Grant was the creative driving force behind Endeverafter, a Sacramento based alternative/hard rock band signed to Epic Records in the early ‘00s. Handling vocals, lead guitars, and songwriting, Grant released two albums with the band before disbanding them in 2012. Grant then served as touring guitarist for LA Guns for five years and also recorded one album with the band. Prince, Smashing Pumpkins, The Cure, Guns 'N Roses, David Bowie, Tom Petty, and In Flames are all influences on Grant and informed the sound of "Always The Villain". Grant is now focused full-time on The Assassins, who have already played shows in the US, including a performance on the Monsters of Rock Cruise 2019. The band plans to get out and play shows again, once we’ve all returned to a sense of normalcy, of course.

Keep your ears open for one of the most fresh and inspired new acts you will hear in hard rock music this year!

ALWAYS THE VILLAIN Tracklisting:

1. Barrel Of A Gun
2. Always The Villian
3. Killing Me Slowly
4. Nightmares
5. Red Light Run
6. Anthem Of Us
7. Break Me With U
8. Death Of Me
9. Runaway (Can You Stand The Rain)
10. Gimme Salvation
11. Secrets

 

https://mgassassins.com/home
https://www.facebook.com/michaelgrant...

 

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by Stefan

[All Nights Reserved]

It's good to see someone smoking in a music video nowadays. Other than that... I skip it big time.

[AlphaMale]

I'll pass

[Geoff]

Wow, it's amazing how some albums make an impact that you remember the most random of names. As soon as I saw this I was all like, oh, holy shit, that's the Endeverafter dude. Took a while to get to that part in the above write-up, but yep, he's back. Very exciting, as I love that album. 

A little discrepancy in the write up that had me madly googling and internet searching... but it says they released two albums. They did not. 'Kiss Or Kill' is their only release. Apparently they recorded an album before that called 'From The Ashes Of Sin' (a song from 'Kiss Or Kill' and you'd assume the same songs are on both albums) but it was not released and their only ever released album is 'Kiss Or Kill.' 

Anyway, sadly I agree that this song is really weak. I'm hoping the rest will be a lot better. I hope. A great talent, this guy is. Killer song writer and guitarist too. If you never checked out Endeverafter, you'd be well served to do so. It's actually not that amazing an album, lol, but there's just something really cool about it and it contains one of the best ballads that has ever actually been recorded. Absolutely and wholly love this song;

Stuff like this didn't hurt their cause either;

Sadly the album did have a few fillers in tow... but still a cool disc. 

4 hours ago, All Nights Reserved said:

It's good to see someone smoking in a music video nowadays. Other than that... I skip it big time.

Good to advertise the fact that he's part of the scum of the earth? That's a good thing? lol, sorry mate... hate smoking with an unreasonable passion. 

[melodicrock]

Talked to Michael a while back about getting the second EndeverAfter album released. Went nowhere...

This sounds incredibly dull and rather pointless. Not modern, not classic, not a band...not really anything.

 

[Geoff]

1 hour ago, melodicrock said:

Talked to Michael a while back about getting the second EndeverAfter album released. Went nowhere...

This sounds incredibly dull and rather pointless. Not modern, not classic, not a band...not really anything.

 

Did you get to hear the second album? If so, is it good? 

[melodicrock]

No mate....not a note. Love the debut though!

[Crazysam]

I thought that EndeverAfter album was a good one as well, first song from this new project doesn't do much for me though

[Stefan]

New song 'Anthem Of Us'.

 

 

[Aordave89]

Better than the first track but still nothing special for me. 
Would love to hear album number 2 from Endeverafter.. great debut 

[Geoff]

Yeah, much better song but still not exactly where you want it to be. But much better. 

[AlphaMale]

Still not that great.

[Stefan]

New song 'Nightmares'.

 

 

[Geoff]

On 7/14/2020 at 12:53 AM, Stefan said:

New song 'Nightmares'.

 

 

For some reason that seems a lot clunkier than how it sounded on the album today. I actually quite like the disc, to be honest. It's not really any (better or) worse than the EndeverAfter album. Like that album, there are a few songs that miss the mark but there's quite a few songs that I like here quite a lot. 

The main difference is that it all sounds a little looser than his big label debut and this album would have benefited from the production that album featured. But overall I dig it. The lead single is easily the worst song, so well done to whoever decided on that one. First song is a song that'd tempt most on this forum... Reminds me of prime LA Guns or something. 

[Crazysam]

On 7/16/2020 at 2:22 AM, Geoff said:

First song is a song that'd tempt most on this forum... Reminds me of prime LA Guns or something. 

Agree with you on the opener 'Barrel of a Gun' being a pretty cool song.  And the latest single 'Nightmares' is solid, unfortunately nothing else on the album really grabbed me