Paper Tigers affirm their immediacy on ‘I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me This Sooner’
Boston indie/alt-rock band release dynamic new EP on Friday, May 20
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Paper Tigers perform live at Boston Calling Music Festival on Sunday, May 29
Listen to Paper Tigers’ raging single ‘A Portrait of a Scene’
BOSTON, MA [May 20, 2022] -- One must never judge a book by its cover, but it’s possible to understand the sonic density of a record through its artwork. When Paper Tigers unleashed their anthemic single “A Portrait of a Scene” in April, the accompanying visual depicted a lone, obscured, and anonymous individual stranded on a rowboat. Now, as the Boston indie/alt-rock band unveil their fourth EP, May 20’s I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me This Sooner, the scene has evolved on a grander, more dramatic scale: An iconic Norwegian whaling vessel stuck in Arctic ice under an endless abyss of a sky, unconscious blues and magentas suffocating the surrounding air as the ship remains hopelessly stranded.
The image is a portal into the mood of I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me This Sooner, an exploration of its uneasy depth, an affirmation of their immediacy, and an allegory for a band with a lot to say and not a lot of time to say it. If lead single “A Portrait of a Scene” was the catalyst in capturing attention, debuting on Boston.com’s Music Club and a surefire selection from Paper Tigers’ upcoming performance at Boston Calling Music Festival, then the rest of the EP is an exercise in keeping it.
I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me This Sooner is Paper Tigers’ biggest, heaviest and most primal sounding record, and it swirls across a sonic spectrum that breaks free from the established confines of indie rock through a sprawling and expansive landscape of chaos, tenderness, grandiosity, and catharsis. From the slow-build thunder of opener “This Means War” to the dramatic gospel chorus of closer “Tonight”, there is a cohesive and comprehensive melodic mayhem present across all five restless tracks, a propulsive sense of movement despite the heaviness in nature. It leans on a hopeful kind of anguish that blends timeless concerns like helplessness, regret, and dysphoria with modern influences that range from ‘90s pop culture and British post-punk to relationship woes and the planet Saturn.
“We really played around with dynamics on this record,” Paper Tigers reveal. “Live, we are a naturally loud and powerful band. It would have been easy to apply that kind of brute force to these tracks, but we felt they needed some finesse. We wanted to expand on that natural live power and also give the listener a little bit of relief now and then. So instrumentally we spent time trying to create space where that was needed, while also making sure the music hit hard where it needed to.”
I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me This Sooner took Paper Tigers 141 days to record, mix, and master; their fastest completion output to date, self-produced by the band and mixed and engineered by guitarist Bjarki Guðmundsson as a continuation of its DIY spirit. With the follow-up to last fall’s breakout EP A Schism Cataclysm, which earned high praise from New England media and radio, Paper Tigers not only wanted to create an emboldened record, they knew they simply had no choice.
“At the core, we wanted this record to sound bigger than A Schism Cataclysm,” the band says. “There was a concerted effort to make everything louder, sound better, and hit harder. We were fortunate enough to get a stellar drum sound right from the start, and that served as the foundation from which the rest of the recording was built. We experimented with different sounds more than ever on this album, as well. We used four or five different guitars, backing tracks, percussion, and employed some really cool vocal-stacking techniques to get some amazing sounds. We also have some ‘Paper Tigers Proprietary’ recording and mixing techniques that we were able to refine and improve. This is our fourth time going through this process, and it’s getting easier. Hearing the songs slowly come together has helped us see past our own biases and appreciate what we have created together.”
That creation leaps, with pinpoint precision, from the speakers to the headspace at every turn. The aforementioned opener “This Means War” echoes a kinetic military cadence, with sounds of cannons and bombs that rattle underneath a lyrical bloom that explores bias, apathy and basic human understandings. The razor-sharp “Long Live The King” calls back to the grandiosity of mid-aughts alt-rock and weaves six unique musical sections into one tightly-knit holistic offering, fit for the closing credits of the latest Netflix series everyone keeps tweeting about. After the midway point of cage-rattling indie banger “A Portrait of a Scene,” the shadow-driven “L'appel du Vide” builds on steady tension before an explosive and colorful release, capped by an Easter egg-like teaser for an unreleased song, a gentle nod to Oasis, that will be featured on their next record. Closing number “Tonight” borders a sense of solemn balladry before erupting into a sing-along fit of anthemia that could move mountains and raise the seas.
“The songwriting on this EP is a reflection of the space in time that we wrote these songs,” says Paper Tigers. “We’ve gone through so many different phases as a band, and they’re all represented in one way or another across our four records. We’ve all certainly had defining moments in our lives this year that were poured into this album. On the whole, these songs seem to fit together in a more cohesive and, perhaps, ‘defining’ way than previous attempts, however, as a band we feel like the best is still yet to come.”
As for that EP title, which reads like a cautionary tale scrawled out in tall capital letters under that Norwegian ship, immobile and frigid, a sense of stubborn regret hanging over its mast jockeying for position amongst the stars, the true interpretation is not defined on the cover, but under it.
“Internal to the band, the title is a reflection of our journey up to now,” Paper Tigers reveal. “We’ve learned so much about what it means to be in this band, to work together, to make and record music, to foster relationships, to treat each other better, and to operate within our scene. Some of it we wish we’d known sooner.”
But like most things, it can play out differently for others.
“Conversely, the title speaks to how people can approach their lives with naivety at times. We look back and believe that we would have made different, better decisions if we would have had that one piece of sound advice. The truth is, we’ve all probably gotten it along the way and either ignored it or chose a different path despite it. The cover art on this EP is a visual depiction of this ideal – an old ship stuck in ice. We hope these concepts and their meanings resonate with our listeners.”
Media Contact: Please direct all press inquiries to Paper Tigers at info@papertigersusa.com or Michael Marotta at michael@publisist.co.
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‘I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me This Sooner’ EP artwork:
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Paper Tigers are:
Michael Medlock - Vocals
Bjarki Guðmundsson - Guitar
Matthew Hughes - Bass
Ben "Cutty" Cuthbert - Drums
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‘I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me This Sooner’ credits:
All music and production by Paper Tigers
Lyrics by Michael Medlock
Mixed and engineered by Bjarki Guðmundsson
Mastered by Bjarki Guðmundsson and Ben “Cutty” Cuthbert
EP artwork designed by Bjarki Guðmundsson
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Recent media praise for Paper Tigers:
“Paper Tigers has joined the ranks among the city’s must-watch Boston bands.”
_Boston.com Music Club
"Paper Tigers make a timeless kind of music that is, at times, deeply embedded in the ’90’s Boston scene mixed with a new school Punk aesthetic akin to CKY’s earlier recordings... [They] pack quite the sonic wallop over five tracks of infectious and undeniable Rawk."
_Rock And Roll Fables
"'Goldmine'... showcases the band's dynamic and musically technical side, similar to the likes of Thrice with their meticulous musical wizardry put forth on magical display."
_Music Box Pete
“A new sense of swagger.”
_1st 3 Magazine
“Check out this brilliant new EP.”
_John’s Music Zone
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The music of Paper Tigers has been heard and featured on:
Boston.com’s Music Club, WXRY Discovery, WZBC’s Virtual Detention, BumbleBee Radio, UncertainFM, Boston Emissions with Anngelle Wood, Your First Listen (KNNZ), Boston Magazine, Vanyaland, Karen’s Indies on Belter Radio (UK), Audiomack Essentials, Christian’s Cosmic Corner, Original Music Showcase, and Marc’s Alt-Rock Playground on Mark Skin Radio, Banks Radio Australia, New England Sounds, Rising With Skybar and On The Town With Mikey Dee on WMFO Tufts Radio, Everything You Know Is Wrong on Salem State Radio, Code Zero Radio, Music Box Pete, Rock & Roll Fables, Boston Groupie News, Metronome Magazine, Tinnitist, Monie’s New Music Radio (UK), Eagles Nest Radio, WODU Old Dominion Radio, Radio Warfare with Tim Livingston, Valley FM in Canberra (AUS), Lonely Oak Radio, This Is Only Rock Radio (Spain), Sunshine iMusic Radio, The Bad Copy, 1st 3 Magazine, and other fine stations and shows.
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Media Contact: Please direct all press inquiries to Paper Tigers at info@papertigersusa.com or Michael Marotta at michael@publisist.co.
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