- solid white vinyl Reverbed out rock and roll - Adam Franklin wearing Robert Smith's socks on a date with PJ Harvey. Lovely and loud, Honeyrude is a melding of time and influences. Guitarist and founding member Ian Lund first met Billy Kunath (bass guitar) asleep in a van in his driveway in Chicago back in 1994. Kunath was playing in a punk band that Lund was recording at the time. The two became friends and were in and out of contact over the years yet both landed in Austin and became bandmates in 2013. A year and 3 singers later, Jess Ledbetter (singer, guitarist) joined the band upon moving from Brooklyn, NY back to Texas. The project came recommended to her by an ex-boyfriend and bandmate. Honeyrude came to their present line-up in March of 2016 when Paul Goetz agreed to sit in on drums for a tribute show celebrating The Cure. They met each other by learning Deep Green Sea and quickly asked Goetz to join. The four began recording demos and in the fall of 2016 they self-recorded The Color Blue to be released on vinyl August 2017 via Shifting Sounds. For fans of: The Cure, PJ Harvey, Teenage Fanclub, Swervedriver, Sonic Youth, MBV Having dribbled a debut single last fall exuding big promise, Austin's Honeyrude bags the EP they promised, acing an LP instead with the potency of a Porsche 968 Convertible purring down the parkway. As he was on "Roger McLain" (included), Ian Lund is a guitar mastermind, gusting Black Swan Lane, Scenic, "Language of Flowers" Pale Saints, Harry Dingman, and Johnny Marr-ish gales into hard shards that flash and fizz, careen, wail, crash, and sputter-pretty dazzling. And with blonde bastion Jess Ledbetter adding lulling, stout vocals that sound much like Long Blondes' Kate Jackson, the Pale Saints comparison (perhaps tracks that Meriel Barham sang) gets exciting. American bands rarely use effects this powerfully and reverberating, loudly-beautiful; compatibly, there's post-punk thwack in the attack: bassist Billy Kunath and drummer Paul Goetz turn quickly from spongy to bold and harsh. And with tunes as tantalizing as "The Color Blue," Falling Backwards," and the Raveonettes-dirty "Sorry I'm Late," the real color is green for "go." - Jack Rabid / The Big Takeover (NYC) - Spring Issue #80 - 2017