Kale Press is Here:
Crawdaddy!: “Starting off the pack is “Dome Under the Sky”, which, if you’re not paying close enough attention, could easily be mistaken for one of Arbouretum’s heavier jams. It features powerful riffs a la Black Sabbath, and lead singer Van Carney’s vocals pierce through the thick sonic swagger of the guitars. Next they take on “The Endless Plain of Fortune” from Cale’s third album, the highly-regarded Paris 1919. Pontiak stretch this song out past its 4:12 mark into an 8:34 exploration, making it a rather extraordinary rendition. The album wraps up with Pontiak’s version of Cale’s “Mr. Wilson”, showing another side to Pontiak, as the heavy riffs subside for a song that’s mostly keys, effects, and drums, with guitar only adding slight background accents. … Kale … is a cool reference tool to have around if you’re a fan of either Arbouretum, or Pontiak, or both … Also, it’s a nice taste of things to come from Pontiak in the near future.”
Dusted Magazine:, Pontiak’s picks of Cale covers “allow the band to stretch well beyond its desert rock, stoner-drone home territories, working from a lighter-toned palette.”
Sun on Sun Press is Here:
JULIAN COPE: “I’ve also been vibing on SUN ON SUN by three-piece post-stoner nutters Pontiak, whose ominous, portentous music straddles a wide sonic rift valley, with references that stretch from the southern latitudes of Spain’s Viaje A800 to the northern majesty of Black Sabbath and Harvey Milk via the Doors. …Pontiak are either space aliens or Mormons (what’s the diff?), which is probably why their music sounds as though it were filtered through deep space.”
Foxy Digitalis 8/10: “There is something truly incredible happening here. … Surreal lyricism and catchy melodies sung over atmospheric power-southern-rock with epic-psych riffs, head-nodding-grooves, precision drumming breaking into huge choruses and soaring reverb-heavy ripping guitar solos is about the best way I can think to describe their sound and that’s just the first song from the LP. Each track brings something different and it’s always the ‘perfect’ kind of different. They bring it down quietly to end the record with a nice acoustic piece that floats in timbre and time. Flawless despite its flaws, Sun On Sun is produced with a welcome unpolished and organically-grown raw sound likened to a soundboard recording of a live show.”
i94Bar In Australia: “Like something living and toxic being exhumed from the belly of a dying beast, this seven-track album wriggles and slides when drawn out into the sunlight. Dark and brooding in places, explosive and white hot in others, it’s a genre-busting source of wonder. … Excuse the rant but when you find intelligent life out there, you have to tell people about it. There’s little wasted and not much out of place. This is very much an album in a crowded landscape that might pass you by if you’re not watching. Don’t let the fact you’ve never heard of Pontiak put you off when this could be one of the smartest dark gems in your contemporary music collection.”
Time Out Chicago: “Oh man, you know that movie where Paul Bunyan builds a washing machine on top of a mesa in the Sonoran desert and puts an old stone cathedral and some battleship hulls inside? Then the camera just pulls back in slow motion as the sun sets? Pontiak would’ve been perfect for that. Wait, dude, did someone put peyote in my Mr. Pibb?”
The Baltimore City Paper: “Pontiak, on its third release, even adds one or three personalities, still without tearing apart its face, and delivering a delicious Pink Floyd/Doors/Kyuss swerve. … Dripping guitar dirge; drawn, mopey/apathetic vocals; an elephant’s lumbering pace; a chorus that howls without lifting its head. It’s actually kinda perfect … It’s like a goodbye peck on the cheek from an album that’s spent the rest of time together shoving its tongue down your throat.”
QRO Magazine says: “Sun on Sun is as if an abstract artist produced a collection on the subject of power tools. … Far too often these days, power-rock is one-dimensional, cheesy, or both. Sun on Sun is neither, though, and amazingly brawny and complex. It sounds like the Carneys could kick your ass, but have far more important things on their minds.”
Raven Sings the Blues, “The band’s latest offering Sun On Sun is as powerful as it is nebulous; trading thunder and smoke in equal measure. … [T]he band power on through the next few decades of heaviness to create the perfect amalgam of swagger, fire and light.”
Gerald Van Waes’ Pysche van het Folk in Belgium: ” What is really fine about the band, is that they, with relative simple fundaments of bluesy riffs still are able to create something different that ranges from an influence coming from postrock songs, to a slowed down hypnotic jam-rock flavoured rock, with beyond that even one experimental track with echoed sounds of distorted guitar and metallic percussion.
Mentes de Acido says, “Their sonic rituals seek catharsis with the three brothers singing at the same time, they try to create atmosphere and aim to submerge the listener little by little. The strength of the album is precisely that the group gives the impression of living on the margin of any influence, and all these points in common on which we have commented appear to be a coincidence, as if they only make the music that comes from within.”
KAUR 89.1 FM Augustana College, Sioux Falls, South Dakota:, who said that closer “The Brush Burned Fast”, which harkens back to their older works? It returns to a more folk-heavy ballad with a creepy echo effect that, combined with Van’s emotive vocals, has a haunting effect and which also puts an end to one great album and leaves me thinking that if secluding yourself in the woods creates music like this, more people should do it. Of course, it may just stem from a life-long understanding between brothers who know just what to put in and what to leave out.”
Any Given Tuesday, “all the noise, feedback, riffage, majestic beauty and total aural assault that would compare to two giant stars colliding in outer space…
Beatbots: Sun on Sun intro track “Shell Skull” launches forward with a heavy guitar riff and drum combination of classically hard-rockin’ proportions … the musical abilities of the brothers Carney are sure to draw you back for repeat performances, at which point the band’s strengths—among them, well-worded narratives and stellar songwriting of the blues-rock variety—become that much more apparent.”
KFJC FM, Los Altos, California: “Fault lines open the earth and sounds chant forth from the chasm…”
Jason Von Nostrand Groves ***************************************************************************
“sun on sun: i heard certain cliffs in california eroding into the ocean and the surf breaking on those dislocated masses of earth. seagulls riding on orthographic uplifts. a thousand plateauxs of sagebrush. geologic music. awesome.”
From the Baltimore City Paper, Pontiak will “swallow (you) in lovely fuzz [and] smoked-out heavy riffage…”
Valley of Cats Press is Here:
Left Hip Magazine has been inspired to ride out to the western U.S. and “take that revolver and shoot some dirty motherfuckers…Clint Eastwood style. If it made me want to do that, you know Pontiak is a band that needs to be checked out.”
Tiny Mix Tapes says: “RIFFS. Yeah, son. Big fuckin’ riffs. … [T]he band has officially evolved from the smoky grooves of their first recordings into classic rock shredding.”
Independent Clauses has come to evangelize: “The astounding thing is that there are only three men in Pontiak, and they’ve completed a nearly flawless rock album- it’s innovative, it’s head-bobbing, it’s got something to yell along to, it’s got heavy songs (“Salt Flats”), it’s got light songs (“Made for the Luxury”), and it’s got to be in your collection. This is the best band I have heard about all year, and I thought I already knew about them. This is the release of the year so far, and there’s only two months left in the year. A monumental release.”
Indie-InTune: “Valley of Cats” is an impressive album by the Virginia rockers Pontiak. Their southern rock/bluesy sound makes it work and shows hope that musicians do exist.”
QRO Radio/Magazine commends the, “Throaty, reaching vocals and drums that can go from gliding to pounding in a second give each track a level of intensity that a lot of alt-country and Southern rock bands can’t. Each track has a lot of momentum to keep pushing the Southern indie scene. Backwoods does not mean backwards.”
Beatbots hails the Carney brethren for, “the ease with which Pontiak play with accepted blues-rock conventions gives their music a natural, unaffected sound—a sound that is becoming rarer and rarer as modern bands continually mistake pretension and showmanship for true innovation. Just remember: this is the blues. It’s damnably good music, but it’s certainly not feel-good music.
Any Given Tuesday found Pontiak to be less like a rock band and “more like an armada of dirty bass and guitars, raw vocals, and smashing drums. The album even proudly brings out pianos, banjo, a harpsichord and a Moog, and the boys never make it sound overdone.”
From the UK, Russels’s Reviews: said in the Valley of Cats, “You’ll find touchstones for this collection by way of Tindersticks, Lambchop and Gallon Drunk. … One for the purists…”
Mashnote in Belgium: “Songs like “Difficult music” and “How tall are you” are definately beautiful songs which makes perfectly clear that we have a band with potential.”
Diminished Seven interviewed Lain, Van and Jennings about Fireproof Records and Pontiak’s Valley of Cats. They described the music, “It got into my arms, my legs, and I found myself beating my thigh with both fists.”
Falls Church News Press likens the new Pontiak album Valley of Cats to “Tom Waits sipping moonshine and fronting a bayoued-up Arctic Monkeys.”
Rappahannock News interviews Pontiak before their national tour.
White Buffalo Press is Here:
Al Shipley said Pontiak’s music was “grubby, unadorned indie rock, like Lungfish with more groove.”
Falls Church News Press Interview says about Pontiak: “The result is a huge sound — huge, not only for a three-piece, but for any size band. When Pontiak tears into their second selection of the night, the volume makes the six-member band that just left the stage sound librarian-like by comparison.”
Eat Something’s Jim Breihan said, Pontiak can “play some riffed out swampy rock that always makes the band they open for sound ass backwards…”
Music Truth: “Top 9 songs in February for Night’s Daughter.”
Tiny Mix Tapes: “Nervy, night-time rock that introduces Tom Waits to Tom York and sets it all in a New Orleans bar. … Do yourself a favor and check ‘em out.”
ADD Reviews, says “Well-produced, catchy indie rock that doesn’t fall into one easily classifiable sound.”
Independent Clauses “Their sound is a very low-slung, rootsy sound, drawing on low vocals, slow tempos, and unique aesthetics. … “
Akenanet posts CD’s on its site that claims those present are “nothing short of genius”
Acoustic Woodlands “They have certainly produced some fine music persuing their goal.”