Subtle Lovers is a band whose makeup is unusual in the Reno indie-rock scene. It was formed by two members of Moondog Matinee—vocalist Peter Woolf Barnato and bassist Adam Carpenter—and the band’s ranks have swelled to double-digits since its debut in 2019.
“Funnily enough, Adam and Pete originally planned for the project to just be a two-person band, but slowly, they started adding instruments as the songs came to life,” said band spokesperson Gabbi Hall, who is a vocalist for the Subtle Lovers, along with Barnato. “And suddenly, it was 11 people.”
Also in Subtle Lovers are guitarists Steve Widmer and Drea Ballard, drummer Kris Stosic, organist Caleb Collins, trumpet player and keyboardist Alex Lemnah, saxophone player and vocalist Rachael McElhiney, trumpet player Nick Kinavey and trombonist Kim Rubio.
“Honestly, getting 11 people scheduled with work, kids and other projects is no easy feat,” Hall said. “Up until now, we’ve only played a couple times a year: OffBeat Fest or Off the Rails, New Year’s Eve at Chapel Tavern, and recently, we played a show up in Quincy, Calif.”
The studio is where Subtle Lovers has spent most of its band time. The bandmates have been recording for the past three years to create their debut album, a self-titled eight-song effort to be released to streaming sites on Aug. 7. You can pre-save the album at Subtle Lovers’ website. You can also hear those songs live at the group’s show the night before, on Aug. 6, as part of Loud as Folk’s First Thursday series at the Nevada Museum of Art.
Recording on Subtle Lovers’ album began in July 2023 at the band’s practice space with its producer and engineer, Noah Lowdermilk.
“We wanted the base of the sound to reflect how it feels when we play live, a vibe we’re really proud of,” Hall said. “We also spent time doing individual tracking in a basement near Wells (Avenue). So, it’s a locally grown album through and through.”
Its localized creation definitely gives the album a dusky, desert-like quality, even on an upbeat stomper like the first single, “Can’t Turn It Back.” The second single, “Train of Troubles,” starts with guitar and vocals and then swells to a mid-tempo burst of color that sounds like a modern take on the Stones’ Exile on Main St. era.
Hall evocatively described another song from the record, “I Should’ve Known,” that was written and recorded in a single day: “It’s one of my favorites, because it sounds like a walk down the city streets in cool sunglasses and a leather jacket.”
Hall said they band is already hard at work on their sophomore release.
“We have already written a few new tracks and plan to dig headfirst into writing more new music, so that album number two isn’t far behind,” Hall said.
Find out more about Subtle Lovers on Instagram @thesubtlelovers.
Antapex returns, will play Cali metal festival
In Reno metal circles, Antapex was one of the most promising bands of this past decade. Merging death metal, black metal, progressive rock and thrash, they were hard to strictly classify and wrote excellent songs. Unfortunately, they were only together for a short time.
But Antapex is back, with four of its original members: guitarist/vocalist Tye Sussmann, guitarist Trevor Gifford, bassist Andrew Jack and drummer Brett Alkire. New to the fold is lead singer James Eshleman, who was previously with the band Dwell Within. Original Antapex singer Christian Elera is currently in the popular “spacecore” metal band Sun Collider.
The band has been re-learning its previous material for the past few months, and they have a great comeback show lined up: the Black Bomb Metal Festival on Saturday, Aug. 15, in Sonora, Calif., headlined by regional bands Amerakin Overdose and TITVN. Antapex is the only Nevada band in the lineup, Sussmann said.
Antapex didn’t even start as a live band. It began as Sussmann’s writing and recording project during the lockdown in 2020; he said he wasn’t sure that the songs he wrote would go beyond his home studio.
“Toward the end of 2021 is when I started putting singles out, and that was how Andrew was the first one to reach out,” Sussmann said. “Then it just kind of fell into place. More people were interested, and that’s how it came to be as a live band the following year.”
The band played at local venues like the Cellar Stage at Alturas Bar and memorably opened up for national deathcore band Carnifex at Cargo, just a few months into their first phase. Yet in 2023, the band split.
Sussmann said that for him, 2023 was a challenging year, and he was expecting the birth of his daughter, Ella.
“There was just so much going on that I had to make a choice—you know, family first,” he said.
Sussmann said he had no intention of returning to music, but he was eventually swayed by Jack, who wrote to him out of the blue in January to invite him to jam.
With Jack and Sussmann playing again, the other returning Antapex members fell back into place.
Eshleman said he was “dying to get back into it” after Dwell Within ended in 2024. He also had more motivation to join Antapex since his 11-year-old son, Aedan, is a fan of the band.
“Aedan’s had their poster on his door for years,” Eshleman said. “So when I had the opportunity to join, I remember I told him, ‘Hey, your dad’s gonna be in Antapex.’ And he was like, ‘What the heck?’ Like, super-surprised, but he thought it was cool.”
At the moment, the band is sticking with past material, but its members all agreed that going even heavier is a possibility when they write new songs.
“I still want to keep the aspect of variety,” Sussmann said. “I think that kind of gives us something unique from other bands, and it allows us to mix things up if we played a more mixed bill. We can reach different audiences.”
To hear some of the songs the band still performs, check out Antapex’s Bandcamp site. For the latest on the band, follow @antapexofficialband on Instagram.
Shared Scars celebrates new record with big show
Another regional metal standout, Shared Scars, is on the way up. The group from Carson City released Deathless, its first EP, on July 7, and celebrated by headlining a packed show at The Alpine on July 11.
The band includes singer Angel Franz, Jason Womer on lead guitar and backup vocals; Tim Klingman on bass; Courtney Stark, Klingman’s wife, on rhythm guitar; and Josh Franz, who is Angel Franz’s husband, on drums. Shared Scars formed in 2022 and has played extensively in its hometown, as well as Reno, Bishop and Sacramento.
The group recorded Deathless themselves at Womer’s home studio. Angel Franz said that the entire band is grateful for “all the time, energy and sanity he sacrificed for us,” adding that Womer “single-handedly learned how to edit, mix and master everything.”
With its discordant but creative guitars—and Angel Franz’s powerful growl up front—Shared Scars has one foot in hardcore and another in modern death metal. Songs like “Ghost” and “Lobotomy” balance up-to-date and classic metal styles well, and with enthusiasm.
“Making this album was a long process, but it was so much to have as much creative freedom as we did, and to have room for error,” Angel Franz said. “These seven songs were the first ones we ever wrote, and getting to release this EP felt to all of us like the close to this first chapter for us as a band.
“We hope we can provide not only entertainment and memorable experiences but also a little bit of hope, faith and encouragement in an often daunting world. No one ever truly goes through this world alone, and we hope that Deathless can serve as a reminder of that.”
To find out more about Shared Scars, visit its Instagram page.
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