Gasoline Lollipops go full throttle on Kill The Architect, fueled by poetry and distortion, it's a howl at the moon for every misfit who feels the need to break free of their box.
Over the course of six albums, Colorado’s Gasoline Lollipops have cut a jagged trail through the heart of American roots music. Equal parts outlaw and outsider, they’ve stirred up a no frills cocktail of punk attitude, country storytelling, and folk sincerity with a roadhouse soul. Now, with Kill The Architect, they aren’t just refining their sound, they’re detonating it.
Produced by Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin, Kill The Architect is a clear step forward. These songs don’t sit politely in one place - they swerve across genre lanes, snarl at sameness, and sometimes soar into the clouds. The record is equal parts rebellion and revelation, where heavy-hitting rock anthems and introspective country-folk laments come together in harmony. If their past albums felt like road trips through the dusty backroads of America, this one feels like an all-out freeway chase.
The album’s origin story is as ambitious as its sound. Frontman Clay Rose, who grew up between his outlaw trucker father in the Rockies and a Nashville songwriter mother, began composing music for a modern ballet inspired by the myth of Samson and Delilah. That creative fire finds its way into the Kill The Architect’s DNA, adding to its themes of grappling with strength and weakness, identity and purpose, destruction and rebirth.
Songs like the title track “Kill The Architect” come at you like a molotov cocktail tossed into the blueprint of modern Americana, with no shortage of menace. Elsewhere, the band shifts gears with moments of haunting beauty, like on “Delilah (You Made A Fool Of Me),” a slow-burning waltz that aches with Biblical weight. It’s storytelling with scars, delivered by a voice that’s smoked plenty of cigarettes while watching so many sunrises.
What really sets this band apart is the alchemy of their lineup. Guitarist Don Ambory, drummer Kevin Matthews, bassist Brad Morse, and keyboardist Scott Coulter each bring formal music training from different corners of the country, but they play like they were born in the same dive bar. They sound like they were meant to be together. Kill The Architect isn’t just the deepest Gasoline Lollipops album yet, it’s their mission statement.