Skip to main content

Maverick Ad

Home

Main navigation

  • Home
  • Cover Stories
  • Features
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Cashbox Legacy Awards
  • Past Covers
  • Weekly Archive
Avalon Stone Stuns with New Single "Cliffhanger," Highlighting Her Rise in the Post-Grunge Scene

Breadcrumb

  • Home
  • Avalon Stone Stuns with New Single "Cliffhanger," Highlighting Her Rise in the Post-Grunge Scene
Avalon Stone
Fri Sep 27, 2024
Cashbox Canada

Clutching onto a doomed relationship until your fingernails start to crack is a feeling a lot us can all too easily recognize. But nobody can convey the sensation of dangling from a high precipice of the heart quite like Avalon Stone, the consistently astounding post-grunge heavy rocker who’s rendered just such a predicament in typically dizzying style on her new single, “Cliffhanger.”

Drawing a picture of imminent romantic freefall that’s equal parts despair and acrophobia, Stone casts herself in a position in which there’s simply nowhere to go—whether up or down.

You step toward me
I take another one back

Cant see the water below
But I hear the waves crash
Broken by battle
Bruised to the bone
Will I end up on this bed of stone
Cliffhanger
Waiting for the fall
Do I let go or hang on
Cliffhanger
Clinging to the wall
Didn’t know I’d been here so long

In a paradoxical approach to musical arrangement that’s become nearly synonymous with her genius, Stone has elected to express that deep unease in a way that’s anything but ambivalent. If you slowed down “Cliffhanger” a bit, its dramatic chord changes and minor-key melody might make it a classic torch song. Instead, she’s chosen the path of no compromise, keeping the song a hard-charging rocker that’s driven by the pummeling rhythms of drummer Tyler Shea and bassist Donovan McKinley and the string-skipping rifferama of guitarist Caleb Bourgeois. The key ingredient, of course, is Stone’s own trademark, Fiona-Apple-if-she-could-kick-your-ass voice, which elevates the track to the same wuthering heights she’s singing about. By the time the oxygen-infused chorus kicks in, you feel like you’re listening to the main-title number of a James Bond movie nobody’s gotten around to writing yet.

It’s all in a day’s work for this preternaturally gifted native of Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, who at age 10 attended a School of Rock camp and was performing professionally within the year. Having passed up a university education to pursue a full-time career in music, she’s spent the ensuing near-decade playing on more than 300 stages in Ontario and the U.S., in everything from bar gigs to festival appearances that have attracted crowds of 15,000 and up.

An even bigger audience latched onto the first singles from her debut album, Chained  – a bracingly mature and unflinching exploration of inner darkness and hoped-for liberation that will be fully released this winter. Those qualities have been in abundance on previous singles like “Forget You,” a deceptively defiant-sounding portrait of a toxic relationship that’s logged more than 200,000 streams worldwide; “Harder,” a mournful acknowledgment of the crippling effects of depression; and “Shaking Me Up,” which portrayed two people amplifying each other’s worst traits: uncontrollable anger and profound sadness.

Listen on Spotify here: open.spotify.com/track/7EIQxU4uTXaPWvLRDlKb1E

Confronting difficult emotions is a challenge Stone has consistently refused to shrink from. She responded to the widespread disorientation and alienation of the 2020 pandemic by hosting a series of socially distanced outdoor concerts that became a popular livestream. That in turn gave her the idea for Music for Mental Health Canada, a nonprofit that raises money through events like Rock the Halls, a platform for local musicians to perform originals and custom arrangements of holiday songs. Watch for this year’s dates.

Next on her concert calendar is Oct. 18 in Sarnia and an Oct. 25 Halloween show at the world-famous El Mocambo club in downtown Toronto—site of a history-making 1977 engagement that proved pivotal in the rejuvenation of the Rolling Stones. Avalon Stone, of course, needs no shot in the arm at this thrilling point in her creative genesis. She may sing of cliffhangers, but the trajectory of her career is plain to see: onward and upward, into ever-friendlier skies. Why bother looking down?

avalonstonemusic.com
tiktok.com/@avalonstonemusic

Reviews
Album
Avalon Stone
Month: Jun 2022
Pop Sensation  Andrew Cassara Shows He’s “Better Off” & Moving On with Dancy New Single Pop Sensation Andrew Cassara Shows He’s “Better Off” & Moving On with…
Rockers Arsenal Mills Unleash Release Supercharged New Single, “Give It Up” Rockers Arsenal Mills Unleash Release Supercharged New Single, “Give It Up…
Durham County Poets Are “Back at the Groove Shack,” Leading the Soulful Way ‘Out of the Woods’ with New Album & Single Durham County Poets Are “Back at the Groove Shack,” Leading the…
Canadian Songsmith Christina Martin Drops Blistering New Single, “In Control” Canadian Songsmith Christina Martin Drops Blistering New Single, “In…
Salt Lake City, Utah Pop-Country Artist Elliott Novak “Why Does Everyday Start With Goodbye” Salt Lake City, Utah Pop-Country Artist Elliott Novak “Why Does…
Heather Charlottetown, PEI Heather Releases Unadulterated Rock ‘N’ Roller“…
Janel Rae Explores Inner & Outer Wreckage with Radically Honest “Sometimes” Janel Rae Explores Inner & Outer Wreckage with Radically Honest “Sometimes…
Morgan x Barrie Explores Human Connection & the Search for Our Place in the World with New Album, Lines Morgan x Barrie Explores Human Connection & the Search for…
Summerside, PEI's Alt-Rocker Soul Filter Say “The City Knows” with New Single Summerside, PEI's Alt-Rocker Soul Filter Say “The City Knows” with New…
Windsor, ON-Born, NYC-Based Leah Harris’ New Single “Shine” Climbing the Charts Windsor, ON-Born, NYC-Based Leah Harris’ New Single “Shine” Climbing the…
Winnipeg's Pop/R&B Artist Stanley Battles With Ego Vs Love In New Single, “Twisted” Winnipeg's Pop/R&B Artist Stanley Battles With Ego Vs Love In New…
Chris Antonik Blues-Rocker Chris Antonik Explores the Hurt of Being Shut Out in…
Frida Maria Encapsulating Every Emotion & Beyond, Pop-EDM Artist Frida Maria…
Flowshine Calgary Alt-Rockers Flowshine Say “Give It A Go” on their Release of…
Christian Artist Ileen Laura Brings Needed Awareness Scleroderma with “Fight Left In Me” Christian Artist Ileen Laura Brings Needed Awareness Scleroderma…

Pagination

  • First page « First
  • Previous page ‹ Previous
  • …
  • Page 69
  • Page 70
  • Page 71
  • Page 72
  • Current page 73
  • Page 74
  • Page 75
  • Page 76
  • Page 77
  • …
  • Next page Next ›
  • Last page Last »

CEO/PUBLISHER/EDITOR IN CHIEF
SANDY GRAHAM

email:sandygrahamemg@gmail.com 

Canadian Journalists:

Contributing Journalist - Canada and Global
Don Graham
email: dongrahamwriter@gmail.com

Contributing Journalist - Canada and Global
Lisa Hartt
email: lisahartt87@hotmail.com

Contributing Journalist - Canada 
Michael Williams
email: greydread@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

International Journalists:

Contributing Journalist - Sweden
Malin Osth
email: malin@musicdays.se

Contributing Journalist - Sweden
Jonas Tancred
email: jonas@musicdays.se

Contributing Journalist - USA
Rob Durkee 
email: rockster2746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Web Developer/Technical Support
Chris Wardman

email: info@chriswardman.com
website: chriswardman.com

Cashbox Cover Design and Graphic Artist
Jain McMillan

email: jainmcmillan@gmail.com

Contributing Photographer 
Tracey Savein - South Paw Productions
southpawproductions@rogers.com

 

 

 

Footer menu

  • Home
  • Features
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Cashbox Archive
  • Issue Archive
  • Past Covers