

“Urban primeval tang from veteran Kansas City four, whose bar-busting melodies posit The Saints duking it out with Alex Chilton…”
~ Mojo
The Pedaljets - Down Town
The Pedaljets - Disassociation Blues
The Pedaljets – Twist The Lens
Kansas City rock & roll powerhouse the Pedaljets have spent decades flying just under the radar. From their inception in 1984, their raucous brand of scuzzy, melodic jangle-pop and jagged post-punk placed them in league with some of the decade’s most beloved rockers, from The Replacements and Hüsker Dü to Meat Puppets and The Flaming Lips, all of whom the Pedaljets have performed alongside on stages across the United States. Their music has received critical acclaim from countless publications, including The A.V. Club, Diffuser.FM, Uncut Magazine, Blurt Magazine, The Big Takeover, and the notoriously critical CREEM Magazine. Twist The Lens continues to build upon the legacy the Pedaljets have created over the past three decades, showcasing the comfort and maturity of their years spent performing together as well as the electric fervor that has permeated their music since the beginning.
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Twist The Lens is only the second new release from the Pedaljets since their reformation in the late 2000s, arriving six years after their most recent LP, What’s In Between. While What’s In Between served as a reintroduction to the band’s Midwestern college rock, Twist The Lens finds the band pushing themselves further than ever before, abandoning the constrictions of genre and focusing on expanding their sound. At its core, the melodic, proto-grunge sound that characterized the Pedaljets’ earlier releases still reigns supreme, but with a deeper exploration of melody, harmony, and pop-rock influence, as well as a newfound writing ethos that allowed the members to push themselves into unfamiliar sonic territory. Vocalist/guitarist Mike Allmayer says, “When I demo a song, I always have ideas for arrangements and all the other parts. But then once the band gets to work on it, I’m like, ‘Well this is going in a totally different direction, but it’s great.’ That’s the beauty of working with these guys for thirty-five years. Some of the directions we’d take with these songs took me outside of my comfort zone at first, but we decided to follow them down that road and it always led to something better.”
Twist The Lens was recorded in three main sessions, produced by the Pedaljets alongside their former lead guitarist Paul Malinowski (Shiner, Season To Risk). Though the Pedaljets core trio of Allmayer, bassist Matt Kesler, and drummer Rob Morrow has remained a constant throughout their tenure as a band, they’ve worked with multiple lead guitarists throughout the years, with Twist The Lens being the first record to showcase their newest addition, Cody Wyoming. Bringing in Wyoming, and working alongside Malinowski, allowed the new songs to benefit from a fresh and outside perspective, while still keeping the album within the Pedaljets family. It also lent itself to a more utilitarian process where, as Allmayer describes, “We would constantly listen back and ask ourselves, ‘Are you hearing something this song needs?’ We were really focused on pushing ourselves to make the best music we can and being extra critical.” To round out the team, the band brought in veteran producer John Agnello (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Kurt Vile) to mix the record and reunited with Archer Prewitt (The Sea and Cake) whose artwork has adorned the last three Pedaljets album covers.
Kicking off the album, “Disassociation Blues” explores the intricacies of romantic communication, with Allmayer’s hypnotic vocals drifting atop a repeating, post-punk channeling guitar line. The track continues to build throughout its three and a half minute run time, adding sparkling layers of guitars to create a soundscape that’s equal parts R.E.M. and Joy Division. “Downtown,” meanwhile, takes its sonic cues from Tom Petty, with Allmayer’s lyrics painting in broad strokes, creating a skeleton framework of hopelessness for listeners to fill in with their own experiences.
Elsewhere on the record, Allmayer delves into an examination of loss. “Twist The Lens” postulates that there’s no permanence and that everything is inherently fleeting as Allmayer sings, “When you twist the lens / you can’t go back again.” “Sleepy Girl,” on the other hand, is a beacon of light in the darkness. Written in a particularly tumultuous period in Allmayer’s romantic life, “Sleepy Girl” observes budding romance from afar as a reminder that even in the times when you’ve lost everything, there’s hope for something beautiful to arise.
Once hailed as “Kansas City’s answer to the Replacements,” the Pedaljets formed in the mid-80s and immediately began touring the United States nonstop, gaining critical acclaim and support slots with some of the decade’s biggest acts, but never becoming a household name on their own. After releasing two LPs, 1988’s Today Today and 1989’s Pedaljets, the band split up. After laying low for a few years, Allmayer and Morrow formed the band Grither and signed with MCA before Morrow decided to go back to school and relocate to Scotland. Kesler owned and operated the Kansas City vintage music shop Midwestern Musical Company, selling gear to artists including St. Vincent, The Arcade Fire, Jason Isbell and more. The Pedaljets couldn’t stay apart forever, though, and returned in 2008 with a re-recorded version of their self-titled album and a rekindled hunger to perform.
The culmination of a long musical journey for the Pedaljets, Twist The Lens contains some of their most masterful songwriting to date and reinforces their status as one of the Midwest’s greatest musical exports.
Twist the Lens is out February 14th, 2020 via Electric Moth Records.
Releases
Twist The Lens
What's In Between
Riverview / Terra Nova
Pedaljets
Pedaljets
1990
Today Today
1988
REMASTERED AND STREAMING SOON!
Hide and Go Seek / One I
Throbbing Lobster 45
1987
Shows
No upcoming shows currently scheduled. Check back soon.
Press
PRESS CONTACT:
( john@babyrobotmedia.com )
( mulefreedom@yahoo.co.uk )
Mojo, February 2020
Urban primeval tang from veteran Kansas City four, whose bar-busting melodies posit The Saints duking it out with Alex Chilton. New guitar hero, Cody Wyoming, brings flash, mixmaster John Agnello gets sharp, and Loved a Stone is a GBV-calibre kickathon.
QRO, February 2020
If music is going anywhere right now, aside from towards pop, it is mostly just more foreboding, and the recently reunited Pedaljets lyrics hang among the aura of guitar and fancy lead drum licks with twangy choruses in new release Twist the Lens. From recent darkly pop singles, “Sleepy Girl” and “Uncounted Heads” to the other notes of somber, joyous, nineties-alternative-pop tribute, there is a brooding redemption in The Pedaljets’ fabulous sounding new album.
Louder Than War, Feb 2020
On their new record, Kansas’ Pedaljets are firing on all cylinders and pulling in a more varied range of styles than they had previously done. They kick things off with lead single, Disassociation Blues, an almost Interpol-like rocker that drives along over pounding sparse drum beats. The vocals yearn over the top before they rise up at the end of the verses to sprout with more urgency. The harmonies sit just behind the cranked guitars, gliding along underneath to add to the overall sound of a band that are, once again, really hitting the ground running. However, on Twist The Lens, the moments that really stand out are those where the band take a left turn from the pulsing rock to bring something altogether more wistful.
Vive Le Rock, February 2020
(the) Kansas City alt-rock veterans impress with undimmed vigor… Allmayer’s vocals conjure similar widescreen Americana feel to those of Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy.
RPM Magazine UK, January 2020
…as the album meanders through a great blend of tunes from the chillin’ ‘Sleepy Girl’ passed the more sprightly ‘One Away’. The title track is a great magnet that pulls in everything that’s gone before it on the record a really good track of timeless alternative Rock and Roll call it scuzzy Americana but it makes for a great tune before being serenaded by the acoustic ‘What Only Cats Chase’ with its sparse arrangement and warm strings. Before signing off with the street rumbling of ‘The Fader’ and we’re done as the band rides off into the sunset like a Rock and Roll Thelma and Louise leaving the world fading in their rear view mirror amidst a cloud of dust. Pedaljets might just have made their finest three-quarters of an hour of music yet. Great effort guys – well worth the wait.
Rock and Reel Magazine, January 2020
PopMatters, December 2019
Built on big, jangling guitars, alongside Allmayer’s unmistakable voice, the tune (“Sleepy Girl”) is immediately memorable, its choruses, instantly hummable and its haunting but hopeful narrative feeling alternately deeply personal and surprisingly universal.