With a booming drum beat that goes back to early rock, covered by overlaid choruses and harp strings, the new track from the Iowa band SIRES carries legacy in its sound, even as its big production video looks at something more modern—cyber bullying and its effects.
SIRES is a band from Waterloo and Des Moines (to name two towns two hours away from one another) that is headed and named after lead singer and guitarist Dylan Sires (they couldn’t very well call themselves Dylan now could they?) Soul for Sale, the new 11-song album from the trio that used to be known as Dylan Sires & Neighbors, has an interesting mission.
“I explore my seven deadly sins and turned them into pop songs,” Sires says. “Each track was made with the intent of creating my own version of a hit song, hence Soul for Sale because it’s absolutely true. This album was made to be heard.”
Further, he adds, “If I had a soul to sell, it’d be on Amazon.”
Is ambition one of the deadly sins? No, but pride apparently is. And “My Everything,” the second single from the album, due out October 21 on Station 1 Records, apparently covers that.
“In its bones, ‘My Everything’ is about destructive obsession—obsession with image, people, and perfection to the point where anything less than perfect violates your looking glass self,” Sires says of the video that gets its premiere right here at TVD. But he adds, “Raising awareness about cyber-bullying and slut shaming is important.”
With his little sister in mind, it depicts a girl who receives an invitation during class, takes up a toke and a drink (and pills, etc.) with the guy—and the next thing she knows, he’s fled and her pix are all over the internet resulting in what Sires calls “a Shakespearian tragedy.”
Like the rest of the new album, it’s produced by Brandon Darner (Imagine Dragons, Holy White Hounds, Envy Corp) and features the harmonies of the two other solid rockers in the band, drummer Ross Klemz and bassist Graham Howland.
It certainly whets one’s appetite for the other deadly sins and makes it known the band isn’t long for merely the cornfields of central Iowa.
