Take Two Tracks & Pass It On, Free MP3s from The Heavy Guilt

New Band Featuring J Smart & Al Howard

The Heavy Guilt is offering two free songs on its website theheavyguilt.com, if you dig the sounds, forward the MP3s to friends. If you email 10 friends and cc the band on the email (info@theheavyguilt.com), they’ll mail you a free autographed full-length CD. The full length debut, Lift Us Up From This is available at theheavyguilt.com and on iTunes.

The Heavy Guilt is an unlikely composite of divergent influences meeting in the middle to form something raw, fresh and potent. The emphasis is on the unique and gritty voice of Erik Canzona. He howls like the lament of generations, with a whiskey stained roar from another time. Like a seasoned tempest tearing through small towns with brave new poetic visions, this young troubadour moans for the alleyways of America, for love and its opposite, for desolation and most importantly, for hope. He belts these songs rooted where folk, soul, indie rock and psych meet.

The band’s first album, Lift Us Up From This, features Josh Rice on the Fender Rhodes and Hammond B3 and
Alfred Howard on lyrics and percussion. These two played together in
the K23 Orchestra for seven years. They had been writing material for almost as long that didn’t fit within the psychedelic funk stylings of the K23, but was more inspired by Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Neutral Milk Hotel, Wilco, Rimbaud, Radiohead and infinite others. When they heard Canzona’s voice there was an instantaneous click, the kind of
serendipitous moment you find at the heart of really great music. Creative lightening struck and in a quick instant, the seeds were planted for a band to be formed. Sean Martin is on the electric guitar and Jason Littlefield plays upright and electric bass, the two have played hundreds of gigs together in Skirt Alert and various jazz ensembles in San Diego. They are virtuosos on their instruments, teachers of students ages 6 to 90, seasoned musicians who can glide over scales with terrifying speed and dexterity or hit that perfect note, sparse, chilling and precise.

On the kit is Jason Smart, formerly of Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey and frequent collaborator with
Fareed Haque, he’s another brilliant musician who finds comfort in a drum throne behind any style. He laid down the framework for this album perfectly. His drumming takes it, at points, to a frenzied fevered pitch and can just as quickly drop down to a soulful “less is
more” approach. This is a group of hidden all stars, disparate masters speaking through the common language of song, no house hold names, just bold players, great lyrics and a voice like an exclamation point. This debut album drives their stake hard into the soil of music, The Heavy Guilt is here.

The Heavy Guilt currently have a couple shows scheduled in San Diego, you can see all dates here.