Jordan Red – Don’t Let The Heavens Fall
On May 15, 2020 – The rock band Jordan Red are set to release their new single, ‘Don’t Let The Heavens Fall‘ which will also be featured on their forthcoming debut album, ‘Hands That Built The World’, releasing in the fall of 2020.
This hard rocking and enjoyable melodic track is filled with soaring guitars, crisp drums and an attention stealing vocal performance that has me going back to the chorus again and again to hear those harmonies. I don’t want to gloss over that bridge, though. THAT BRIDGE – starts around 2:19 and is an absolute crusher. This song has what it takes to become a staple on rock radio all summer long.
There are so many aspects to the song that I like and one that shouldn’t be overlooked it the mix. I’ve tested this one out on multiple devices including my Yamaha NS-10 studio monitors, my cars’ Burmester Audio system, a set of earbuds and a Bose Wave radio. Result: This thing kicks ass on every single one of them. Trust me – in this business, that is not always the case.
So let’s get inside the song and see some of the personnel associated with it. There’s front-man Dan Leigh (New Device) and guitarist Dan Baker (LiA – Life Imitates Art), as well as Conor O’Keefe and Dave Fee of As Lions (Eleven Seven Music) in the recordings on the album. It was mixed and mastered by Romesh Dodangoda (Bring Me The Horizon, Bullet For My Valentine & Don Broco), and accompanied with illustrative artwork by Elisa Schillaci (Alter Bridge & A Perfect Circle). In short – Jordan Red has the total package.
I was able to catch up with the band to talk about the new track.
“Sound Vapors: Loving your new song ‘Don’t Let The Heavens Fall’ – when does it get released to the world?
Jordan Red: Thanks for checking out the track. ‘Don’t Let The Heavens Fall’ is releasing on May 15th. We are also going to be putting out a lyric video produced by 12 Inch Media that visually hammers home the song’s message and adds an extra dimension to the meaning found in the words.
For now, you can check out the trailer we’ve released this week!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
SV: Can you talk about the songs meaning and what are you hoping people take from it?
JR: ‘Don’t Let The Heavens Fall’ was written as a warning that “those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it”.
We approached Elisa Schillaci to design the cover art after seeing her recent work on the Alter Bridge Walk The Sky tour posters and our debut single ‘Beautiful Monsters’. The artwork we created for this release shows a city and civilization in ruins whilst a dragon gargoyle looks down at what we have become in anger and disgust. The image represents how time acts as a harsh judge and that our actions have consequences. The duality at play here is between the traditions of our past and the modernist nihilism of the present.
We hope that people realize that what they do with their lives matters. On a long enough time scale everything good that we currently take for granted can disappear if we don’t fight for it. The lyric “Don’t Let The Heavens Fall – The Heavens Fall Away” is a reminder of this.
SV: Love the production and musicianship on this song. Where did you record, who produced and mixed? Also – any other production notes you’d like to share.
JR: We recorded at Long Wave Studios. The track was produced and mixed by Romesh Dodangoda.
When Dan and I write songs we take our ideas and develop them as far as we possibly can so by the time a producer hears them they get the direction we are heading in. This way we go into the studio fully prepared and that leaves more time to be creative and experiment with different sounds or tones when we need to.
Once we were in the studio, handing over the songs to Romesh was a very liberating experience. We had been sitting with the music for a long time through the writing and demo stage. In a lot of ways, we were probably too close to the tracks at this point, so we were very happy to get his take on what we were doing. He knows our sound well and is so good at what he does that it’s easy to trust him to get the best out of each song.
SV: Vocally the song is so strong and I love the harmonies in the chorus (especially the end of the first line in the chorus). Can you talk about your approach when laying down backing vocals.
JR: When we write vocals, they’re scrutinized to a huge degree, especially lyrically. For us the writing process is a case of burning off all the dead wood and digging into what we need to say. Dan really believes in the words he’s singing and I think you can hear that in the performance. Having a frontman with such an expressive vocal range made it easy to experiment with a lot of ideas and try things out on the fly when we needed to.
In the studio, Romesh usually likes to keep the backing vocals super tight and together, this helps support the lead vocal without distracting from it. We created a lot of space on this chorus by taking more of a groove based approach with the rest of the band. The resulting wall of sound has a big impact when it kicks in and is very powerful.
SV: What’s next for the band? EP, Full Length?\
JR: We are going to be putting out a few more singles in the run up to the release of our full length album Hands That Built The World. We want to hit the road with this release so right now it looks like late this year depending on when gigs and festivals are able to start up again!
Keep an eye on our social media or get on the mailing list to hear about it first!“
The band has also created a giveaway – details can be found here: https://www.jordan-red.com/giveaway
-Tommy Marz
You can follow Tommy on Twitter and Instagram let him know what you think.
For More On Jordan Red, Visit: