Stained Glass Motorcade - Steel Magnolia

Stained Glass Motorcade

Steel Magnolia
self-released; 2015

3.2 out of 5

By Ted Rogen

You have to appreciate musicians or artists in general that are humble. The release from Stained Glass Motorcade entitled Steel Magnolia comes with fair warning on their Bandcamp page that the recording is not perfect. That is indeed a correct assessment from the band and to be fair Steel Magnolia is about demo quality that sounds like it was recorded wherever they rehearse. 

Although the recording quality won’t be winning awards at the Grammys it is good enough to give you an idea of what the band offers. The band comprised of John Stenger (guitar/vocals/drums), Devon White (bass) and Stephen Dempsey (synthesizers/organ/trumpet) play rock with a tinge of other styles like blues and funk.

Better treatment would have unequivocally helped out Stenger’s vocals but there a number of things he needs to start doing if he wants to be a good vocalist. First and foremost he needs to stop stringing his words together. He barely leaves any space between his words at times, which makes the lyrics almost impossible to understand. He often sounds like he is mumbling and at his worst sounds drunk.  There are other things like staying in key and simply pronouncing the words in a clearer way 

The highlight is the first track “Head For The Door” which is fairly straightforward rock revolving around power chord progressions, a basic drumbeat and a guitar solo. Stenger’s lyrics focus on loneliness and relationships. He sings, “Looking for old friends, Nowhere to be found. Looking out the ends, I got my head in the clouds.”

“Jaded” has a chilled out bluesy feel that sounds good on the band. Stenger sounds pretty good here and it is his best vocal performance. “Fool's Gold” unfortunately sounded like it was cut with a high pass filter, as the low end was virtually non-existent. “Just Wanna See You” contains some inspired trumpet that I hope to hear on their future songs.

The members of Stained Glass Motorcade are college students and if they have enough talent to play local bars around their area and I’m sure they would get a decent crowd. That being said if the band has hopes of making it on a national level and compete with bands like Ty Segall or even The Black Keys they still have a lot of work to do.

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