Indie band, Gamblers have released their highly anticipated sophomore album, Pulverizer. The twelve song collection features previous singles “Pulverizer” and “Running From My Grave.” Lead singer Michael McManus describes Pulverizer as being able to navigate the experience of professional success all while having your personal life completely falling apart.
On the new album, band member Johnny Hoblin shares, “Loud, powerful, colorful indie rock. Reflections of our favorite musical decades filtered through our own personal experiences.” Additionally, Jimmy Usher adds, “Pulverizer styles itself with a lot of poppy flash and color but at its heart is really more like any older Irish folks you may know- charmingly, jokingly obsessing over death and drinks.”
Gamblers will be celebrating Pulverizer with a special album release show. Join the band at Heaven Can Wait in New York on March 30th to hear songs from the new album live.
Life, as we all know, has a way of hitting when we least expect it—both for better and for worse. If you’re lucky, you walk away with your body, mind, dignity, joy and loved ones more or less intact. For Gamblers founder/bandleader Michael McManus, a few too many brushes with mortality have had him feeling like there’s a great force threatening to pound him literally into dust. His grandfather’s passing and a harrowing car crash that left four others at the scene dead are just two examples of what, for McManus, has been quite the, um… eventful period.
Along the way, Gamblers managed to score millions of Spotify streams with their Mick Jenkins-featuring single “Another Dose” (off their 2022 remix EP When We Exit). So there’s that. But the blows kept coming. As the band’s profile rose, McManus’s mother began a bout with cancer which eventually took her life, and his romantic partnership of seven years dissolved. This all followed every other member of Gamblers departing one by one, leaving McManus feeling like he was docked on an island at the helm of a ghost ship.
Amazingly, though, McManus wrote most of the New York electro-indie outfit’s new album Pulverizer well before any of these crucial life developments. When the activity around the band’s 2020 debut full-length Small World gave way to starting out on a fresh batch of songs, McManus wasn’t yet preoccupied with questions about whether the hand of fate plays cruel jokes on us. But McManus, nothing if not an astute observer, tends to follow his intuition into lyrical themes that end up ringing true later—almost as if his future self were sending him messages through the music…
“It’s eerie,” says McManus, “how much of this stuff turned out to come to life.”
Here’s the thing, though: Pulverizer is not a dark or foreboding experience. On the contrary, Gamblers have arrived at a rousing fusion of organic and electronic sounds. You could say they’ve come up with the ultimate afterparty album that hasn’t entirely left the celebration behind, no matter how weary or tenuous the grip. A contemplative record, to be sure—one that takes-on weighty, difficult subjects—but spiked with irresistible hooks and, ultimately, a zest for life that bursts through the grooves. On the infectiously funky, disco-influenced title track, for example, McManus pulls a lover in close, imploring her to take stock of the simple fact that they’re both still alive. “Time, it goes faster still,” he sings, before “Due to problems that are typical of humankind.”