Awesome New Republic
Rational Geographic Volume I
April 2009
Honor Roll Music
 
https://anrmiami.com 
https://honorrollmusic.com

========


AWESOME NEW REPUBLIC

Awesome New Republic is a 2-piece indie band from Miami, FL comprised of core members Michael John Hancock and Brian Robertson. MJ and B-Rob both graduated from the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami and have been cultivating their sound for the past 3 years. ANR self-released their first album ANR So Far to critical and popular acclaim in 2005. ANR have toured the South East, East Coast, and North East with such acts as Girl Talk and The New Deal. After a successful 2008 CMJ, the band headed back into the studio to complete Rational Geographic Volume I which they will be supporting and touring around for the bulk of spring. The disc will be the first in a series of 3 volumes to be released in 2009. Volume II will be released in July and Volume III (with 3 volume bundle) in October.

RATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Rational Geographic, the new album by Awesome New Republic, is a self contained trilogy of six song cycles inspired by the parallels between George Lucas' original Star Wars trilogy and the past thirty-plus years of American government. All of this might sound a bit heavy handed, though the idea evolved organically and subtly as singer John Hancock and keyboardist B. Rob E. Robertson recorded the new album and began taking notice of the similar moods in each third of their work in progress to the corresponding films in Lucas' masterpiece.

From the slightly goofy, but totally serious introduction of Volume I, to the icy cold gloom and doom of Volume II, on up to the celebratory conclusion of Volume III, the similarities got the band thinking about the parallels between what they were really writing about (American society and government) and the plot of Star Wars and started to incorporate references to the films throughout. Not ones to leave the average listener alone in a world full of Washington insiders and fan-boys, ANR avoid taking their concept too far, allowing the audience to interpret on their own accord how the sex jams and breakup songs contained within relate to the album's more literal moments.

Volume I of this three volume set lays out the beginnings of the musical journey with a sampling of varied pop song forms about politics, technology, sin, and gay sex in no particular order. Lead single "Birthday" is a dance-floor gem with the prowess of Giorgio Moroder.