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Red Door Exchange splatters the cover of the Valley Advocate , with a review of the new album and a Q&A inside.
[Jeremy Saffer Photo]
The Red Door Exchange put on a really nice electric set warming up for West Indian Girl two nights ago at the Horse. This band is a gem, producing some of the most interesting rock music that I have heard anywhere in some time. (The last time I had the chance to see them, at the 11s some months back, they were doing a mainly acoustic set. The band is so powerful doing the electric stuff and I was glad to see they have gone back to LOUD). Pietroniro’s guitar sound was great – he writes some of the best chord progressions I have ever heard in rock – and the whole band sound was great in the Horse. Small crowd for West Indian Girl, unless it filled up after RDX. Great gig.
Posted 4.7.06 by duluoz1922 on Soundboard, a Masslive.com forum
Door Re Me
Steve Rullman continues his run as one of the area's most consistently creative talent scouts. Thanks to Rullman's wandering eye and good taste, the Western Massachusetts-based Red Door Exchange is making a three-date run through South Florida this week. RDE plays the kind of smirking, intimate rock that made Sebadoh and Yo La Tengo perennial faves of thinking-people's-rock types. Sure, it's emotional, but don't call it emo. And yes, it's quirky and lofty, but don't call it twee. These guys (and a girl) balance a pop-songwriting sensibility with a deft instrumental imagination, puncturing brash fuzz guitar with pin-prick piano, swerving from pounding rock riffs into swaying choral harmonies. Subtle layers of percussion, electronic flourish, and wah-wah guitar add atmosphere; songs unfold with multiple movements, like ambitious micro-operas. It ain't easy music to classify, which is just the way the art-school kids and fuzzy-sweater set like it. And you should too.
Jonathan Zwickel - New Times
(Review also available at newtimesbpb.com)
The inside cover of Red Door Exchange’s self-titled CD is a psychedelic black and white silhouette of the band, a huge black daisy, and a starry grey sky. The image is mysterious, with no faces revealed, and the daisy dwarfing the silhouettes. A clear plastic covers the picture, and gives the impression that the group is within a bubble in an otherwise limitless sky. It’s an image that parallels the band’s music, eerie and abstract, yet solid and true. Kate Stephens provides backup vocals on many of the tracks, lending an angelic, choral sound to the work, and preventing lead singer Jesse Lee Pietroniro’s straight-up rock voice from sounding, well, too straight-up rock.
Red Door Exchange has composed songs with catchy beats and pop attraction. They’ve also come through with some longer pieces, namely the seven-and-a-half minute “Dawn on a Red Church.” “Sunny Bone” is deliberate and symphonic, and sparse lyrics accent the largely instrumental piece. Stephens carries the melody in a voice so pure it’s difficult to hear when it fades and the instruments rise. The slow, shimmering cadence carries over into “Our Day Off,” then abruptly switches gears to a distorted, guitar-infused bridge, which sounds suspiciously like the Cranberries’ “Promises.” Pietroniro’s voice flails like a controlled seizure in “War of Love,” establishing it as a natural choice for the film score of any Chuck Palahniuk adaptation. (Self-released)
April Wachtel - Northeast Performer
(Review also available at performermag.com)
Sheryl's Top 10 CDs for 2005
Alternating between crunching guitar chords (that seem to have been summoned from the depths of the sea) and ethereal female harmonies, Red Door Exchange has produced a rock album that ranks as one of the most accomplished to come out of local scene in recent years. The band, which hails from Easthampton, wears its influences on its sleeve (Radiohead, late Pixies), but guitarist/singer Jesse Lee Pietroniro's songs are both original and strong. The three-song suite of "Whaddya Know," "Sunny Bone" and "Our Day Off" is achingly beautiful and their success owes much to the vocals of keyboardist Kate Stephens, bassist Jim Elliott's fluid lines and drummer Michael Wyzik's tasty fills.
Sheryl Hunter - The Recorder, Greenfield MA
Red Door Exchange is the November Adopted Band of the Month on WRSI, 93.9 The River. The album is added to the station's rotation, with selections featured approximately four times a day along with interview clips, and a live in-studio performance on November 15th. "No Good Buddy" is currently receiving the most airplay; requests for any songs off the album can be made any time by calling The River request line at 413-586-8939.
Archived Press: 2003 2004
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