Biography

 

 

            George Byrne’s songs sound like idyllic first love-- lanky bodies sprawled on decks and docks, sandy beaches, mossy-kneed denim after a tumble with a crush, and jumping in the back of your friends’ truck after the team wins a big game. They each exist as glimmering moments of escape; yearning for a past time, or sweet, sun-drenched future.

           

           Everything is perfect, or it could be. His eyes often sting and the world is complicated.

The palm trees of his current hometown of LA glint and sway, and the white sands of Sydney’s Bondi Beach are underfoot – there has been a transition. ‘Stars and Stripes’ is the new single, and its beauty is unmatched, channeling all the greatest golden music ever made. The choppy acoustic guitar playing, tight drums, his hushed and yearning voice, the occasional keening of a slide guitar, and some masterfully produced strings.

 

          Byrne knows how to get what he wants out of the studio, and can bend genres to suit his needs and will. He loves to build complex narratives with his catchy-to-earworm lyrics and shifting musical styles. While much of the sound is a lush country-tinged pop or Americana, he can’t hide his soft spot for Dinosaur Jr and Stephen Malkmus, as well as the heavy romance of Tears for Fears, Pink Floyd, the great troubadours and even some 80s LA glam ballads.

 

          Like a heartbroken angel with a guitar and a dream- not to mention the rugged good looks of a dark, Elvin warrior-- Byrne is destined to quicken pulses and steal the swooning hearts from wives and daughters everywhere; Or, at the very least, cut a vast swathe of destruction across two fine countries - from seas to shining seas.

 

Introducing the new one, his first made in America: Hollywood Lights.

 

 

-Elfie Panterhammer 2014.