Shannon Mier: “Wheels Up” deepens on multiple listens

Shannon Mier is an American rock musician living in Tucson, Arizona. His music blends the influences of singer-songwriters like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen with the alternative sound of the music he grew up with, including Weezer and Red Hot Chili Peppers. His latest album, Wheels Up, was released in April 2015.

After a promising start to his career and releasing two albums, Mier took an unexpected break from music, due to suffering a ‘career-crisis’. “I had the wrong attitude,” Mier says. “I thought that if I didn’t attain a certain level of success, that if I didn’t make a lot of money playing music, then it didn’t matter. I ran into obstacles and let them derail me.”

Mier’s return to music was gradual. When he finally decided to record an album again, he didn’t have the budget to record in a studio. “I thought about a Kickstarter, but it felt like it was important for me to do this myself.” Mier played every note on the album, and mixed and mastered it himself.

I’ve given this “Wheels Up” about 6-7 listens before writing, as this music requires time to allow the lyrics to penetrate. So now that I’ve put in the time, I’ve come to regard this as a strong album. The music is very well played, tastefully arranged, and well produced, with a nice organic sound overall. The album rocks at most times, but also harkens back to acoustic, folkier roots. There’s also a beautiful simplicity to the guitar playing; the songs sound fat and juicy and delicious, but easily digestible.

Lyrically, Mier is creative and poetic without being pretentious. The songs are mostly personal in nature, with just a smattering of Mier’s social observations included for good measure. The subject of his songs is traveling farther and farther, deeper and deeper.

One of the most endearing characteristics of Shannon Mier’s music is his sense of humanity and compassion; the lyrics of “Wrong Side of the World” or “Wheels Down” remind us of our human commonalties, and are so evocative as to provoke powerful emotions in a receptive listener.

This is a collection that deepens on multiple listens, especially tracks such as “(Don’t Throw Your) regards on my Grave”, “You Didn’t Make Me Think Twice”, “One More Year” and “All My Plans (Are Floating in the Sea)”.

Each song is a distinctly different distillation of modern forms of rhythm and style, as Mier has this uncanny ability to be honest and vulnerable without dipping into the sentimental and sappy. Mier is not whiny or annoyingly self-indulgent on here, and he isn’t just filling the album up with nonsense wordplay that sounds “important” without actually having any considerable meaning. There really is not a wasted word on “Wheels Up”.

That Shannon Mier’s music is every bit as solid as his words in this release, results in an album that’s brilliant from beginning to end.

OFFICIAL LINKS: HOMEPAGE – FACEBOOK – TWITTER – YOUTUBE