Quiet Giant

“Knee of the Curve,” the last song on Quiet Giant’s latest release, You’re in Heaven, starts with a shambolic drum and bass groove, loose and spilling over. The guitar comes in with a few bell-like harmonics, and then settles into a descending riff drenched in echo that blazes a path for the vocal.

“What drive took you the farthest?” Danielle Capalbo croons. “Waking up with another song to keep out / You learned it by heart and now you’re in the knee of the curve / you wanna slow down.”

It’s a breakup song, it turns out. But it’s also the kind of big song you might play at full blast in your car with the windows rolled all the way down. It’s a song made for summer.

And it’s not alone. With You’re in Heaven, the New Haven-based Quiet Giant — Capalbo on guitar and vocals, Jared Thompson on drums and vocals, William Touri on guitar, and Mark Almodovar on bass — has made a short album that feels big. The opening track, “Heaven,” starts with a shimmy that just about nods back to New Haven’s doo-wop days before it rockets forward into the present. “Heaven” also shows that Capalbo’s voice has an edge that can more than match the twin guitars when they turn up the volume.

But the album also shows that Quiet Giant set out to make something a little different than a straight-ahead rocker, as each song has its own distinct feel. On “What I Know,” the energy that explodes on “Heaven” and fills space on “Knee of the Curve” stays churning and low to the ground, even on the choruses, turning the pulse into something more like a strut. And “Outta My Head” features the band’s most intricate work, as the two guitars and bass all find lines to play that twine around one another to create a groovy whole.

The liner notes reveal that You’re In Heaven was a studio effort, with the guitars, bass, and vocals recorded at Squirrel’s Nest/Crunch House in West Haven, and drums, percussion, and vocals laid down at Raven Blue Studios in Brookfield. It doesn’t sound like that; it sounds like a band rocking out live. And if this is the sound of their studio project, how much energy might they kick up when they’re all on a stage together, in front of a live audience?

The New Haven area will have a chance to find out in the near future when Quiet Giant plays Crunch House in West Haven on June 23, amid gigs in New London and Middletown. That You’re in Heaven is Quiet Giant’s fourth release, though, suggests that, even in the Elm City’s ever more active music scene, this is band that could leave a big footprint. - Brian Slattery, New Haven Independent

Ever since New Haven singer-songwriter Danielle Capalbo expanded her solo lo-fi outlet to the full-bodied dream pop group Quiet Giant, the band has hit the ground running with their own particular take on indie rock and has never quite stopped. Following the release of their excellent debut Loom, the four-piece has dropped numerous singles (including highlight “Everything”) and has continuously played an impressive amount of shows both in and around CT.

Continuing this prolific streak, Quiet Giant’s new You’re In Heaven EP serves as an opportunity to not just get the seemingly endless influx of new songs out on an as-soon-as-possible basis, but to experiment with influences and try on a few different musical faces. Here, Capalbo and crew take the winning dream pop formula of Loom and diversify its styles, sometimes embellishing its more blissed out space delay, other times evoking a crunchier, more garage-like tendency. That being said, Quiet Giant further asserts its ability to craft both vocal and guitar hooks that linger a lot longer than the EP’s brief running time.

Opener “Heaven” kickstarts the EP with instantly memorable dueling guitars and punchy distortion that recalls a 90s crunch filtered through a little bit of the gritty NYC post-punk scene in the early aughts. This grittier version of Quiet Giant lets loose over the next few tracks–look no further than the crashing crescendos of “Wake Up” and the brooding refrains on “What I Know.” While Capalbo’s breathy vocal usually sits front and center of the music, the muted angst that has permeated her songwriting really escapes on the EP’s hardest hitting song “Outta My Head.” Final track “Knee of the Curve” is a standout that takes these harder hitting sensibilities and brings back some of lead guitarist Will Touri’s most memorable spectral riffs. - Dan Osto, CT Scramble

ou're In Heaven," a new five-song EP by Bethel rock band Quiet Giant, follows "loom," a full-length album from 2015, and two subsequent singles: "There's No Future," from April 2016, and "Bill Hicks" / "Everything," released earlier this year.

In early 2016, at Mother Brother Studios, the quartet — singer-guitarist Danielle Capalbo, drummer Jared Thompson, guitarist William James Touri and bassist Mark Almodovar — played an early version of "Wake Up," (originally called "I Wrote Myself A Note" in see video above), the second track on "You're In Heaven," as part of CTNow's Press Play series.

The new EP unfolds as a continuous, 20-minute suite; songs flow from one to the next, and seem to get progressively more processed (compare the relatively dry production of "Heaven" to the ambient "Knee of the Curve"). Capalbo's breathy, emotive voice is easy to fall in love with. And of all the hooks you'll encounter, "Knee of the Curve" ("Oh, how much can you take? / Oh, how much did you take? You know better than that / You know better than that now, don't you?") might be the hookiest.

Quiet Giant recorded "You're In Heaven" at Squirrel's Nest Studio in West Haven and at Raven Blue Studios in Brookfield. It was mixed and mastered by Jeff Brown. The EP will be released by the New London-based Telegraph Recording Company and is available now for purchase on Bandcamp, and you can hear the five songs for free exclusively on CTNOW below. - Michael Hamad, Hartford Courant / CTNOW

Last week, Bethel, CT rockers Quiet Giant dropped their latest EP, You're In Heaven, a five-song odyssey that feels more like a multi-movement work than a standard release. Beginning with the bright, bouncy "Heaven" and continuing all the way through the heavier, ambient "Knee of the Curve", the EP connects through a 20 minute crescendo, an interesting narrative thread that keeps the record intact as an artistic idea, while keeping the autonomy of each track as an individual concept. Pick up the EP below and catch Quiet Giant at BoroughFest in Newtown, CT on 5/27 with Deer Leap, Perennial, and more. - Brian Varneke, New England Deli

Blending musical worlds can sometimes be catastrophic. “Don’t cross the streams, Ray!” A hearty ‘what were they thinking’ all around is unfortunately a byproduct of trying to cram sonic square A into sonic circular hole B. Yet every now and then it works and it works so well it blows the lid off the whole damn magic box. And when you peek inside? When you glean what’s inside? It’s something so pure and so beautiful, this musical baby with the soft skin and the smile that melts hearts. It touches the very essence of the soul in the most untainted of ways.

Connecticut’s Quiet Giant were at one time, very recently, known by the moniker loom. Now they’ve emerged with a better name and a debut album called loom. To be even more precise, they’ve emerged with a new name and an album that’s going to be, and should be, viewed as one of the best to emerge from this small state with the big music scene. Quiet Giant have blown the lid off the proverbial magic box. They’ve produced a musical offspring from the marriage of two eclectic and often times downright weird genres that on paper probably shouldn’t work out this well. Jangling, dance-able indie pop and ambient shoegaze? Each so bent on creating certain atmospheres that seem so contradictory on so many levels, yet here, in this space of twelve tracks, brought together in holy matrimony. Until death do us part.

So discreet I could never tell you’re leaving me...

Quiet Giant are built around two things first and foremost – the angelic, swooning vocals of front woman Danielle Capalbo, and some seriously nimble and penetrating guitar work. This is the canvas on which Quiet Giant begins each painting, filling in those happy little trees and happy little clouds with elements from a broad palette of influences. There’s the obvious homages to acts like the Pixies or Mazzy Star but Quiet Giant are so beyond simply riffing on their favorite riffs written by someone else two decades ago. Instead Quiet Giant have created a sound that is truly unlike pretty much any other act, certainly in their own backyard and very possibly beyond. Very far beyond.

In the mood to dim the lights, don the headphones, and drift away from this shitty, white noise-filled world for awhile? Try “High/Mighty” or “Forever Fear” on for size. Two of the better examples of how Quiet Giant can force their shoegaze and heavier elements to engulf you from head to toe. Those vocals soaring over those nighttime riffs and star-filled atmospheres can be chill-inducing when allowed to be. In the mood to move a little, to shake your ass while pretending like no one is watching? Give “A Long Glow” or “In Color” a ride. Both would have the most entrenched members of rhythm-less nation bopping around the house like a reject from a Cyndi Lauper video with a catchy array of indie rock meets pop sensibility.

Quiet Giant is a much more fitting epithet. They’ve sneaked right up on us in roughly a year’s time and started to guide us through a dizzying array of outside nonsense with clues to the great mysteries that need solving. Mysteries, such as, how can four people come out of nowhere and steal that part of our hearts reserved for the music we love? (They’ll return your ring when you’ve figured it out, Agent Cooper.) - Chris McCabe, Lonesome Noise

The last time the world heard from Quiet Giant, the band was called Loom, a lo-fi dream pop project that served as a creative outlet for Bethel, CT singer-songwriter Danielle Capalbo’s breathy vocal melodies and melancholic poetry. While those bedroom pop gems were likable enough in their own right, they did not predict the full bodied sonic metamorphosis that the band would achieve on their proper full length.

Boasting excellent production and a propulsive rhythm section, the album Loom is a textured, full band affair that decorates Capalbo’s songs with a blend of stadium sized guitar delay and noisy shoegaze, making a strong case for Quiet Giant as not only a moody dream pop outlet, but a full fledged rockband.

Definitely Check Out: “In Color”, “Every Crime”, “Echoes” - Dan Osto, CT Scramble

Released only a few days after the new year, Quiet Giant‘s new b-side “Everything” starts off as a flicker of bedroom pop and escalates into a triumphant revelation of ethereal lo-fi. Opening the song with a fragile breath, singer songwriter Danielle Capalbo juxtaposes her smallest voice with empowering words: “Once you know your power, they cannot take it back.” This statement reverberates throughout the song and slowly picks up steam as Capalbo and crew begin building space and tension greater than the room around them.

While the group’s excellent debut benefited from exceptionally strong production and arrangements, “Everything” is surprisingly loose and live sounding. By the end of the song, when that fragile breath evolves into a life-affirming chant: “You get to be everything”, one could almost hear the entire band realizing the same new year’s resolution at once. - Dan Osto, CT Scramble

"loom" was recorded at Bonehead Studios in Cheshire. On "Cathedral" and "A Long Glow," you sense the lo-fi origins — Capalbo's comfort zone — of the music, and also Touri's push in the other direction: toward bigger sounds, more guitars, playing strumming patterns or long-delay arpeggios. Capalbo's voice often sounds like a loud whisper, but it still finds space in the mix.

There's variety in the textures; low-key intros settle into fuzzed-out space-rock riffs and half-time grooves.

"I don't mean to give more to you than I get," Capalbo sings on "Every Crime," and it's a public face grafted onto private thoughts. "It's a habit, it's a face I wear with regret – just killing time down here in this room where I live." You hear "OK Computer"-like crescendos, and the inevitable bottoming-out. "I cannot be wrong, I'm right," Capalbo sings, a little stubbornly, on "Forever Fear (Sylvia Plath)," "ceremonies don't comfort me." (Lyrics also shape-shift, Capalbo says, solidifying after the band has played a song live a few times.) - Michael Hamad, The Hartford Courant

I first heard Quiet Giant during my orientation as a member of the Heirloom Arts collective. They describe their sound as “heavy, dream pop with heart.” It is dreamy and spacey, but has an edge that comes through on the record. Much of that comes from drummer Jared Thompson, whose technique gives the music a sense of forward motion, and Will Touri’s guitar tones. Danielle Capalbo has a soft, distinct voice that serves as a counterpoint to the rocking music behind it. In some ways she sounds like she’s from another planet, but has clearly adapted her style to the indie rock world. The album is easily a contender for my personal favorite of the year, and the band is from Connecticut, too. Other standout tracks include “In Color”, “Forever Fear (Sylvia Plath)” and “Heaviest Metals”. - Will King, Aural Wes

Quiet Giant is an indie rock band with a dark, dreamy sound, hailing from Bethel, CT. Their musicality is profound; the masterful guitar solos coupled with intense bass lines, and particularly the rhythmic choices of Jared on drums, are clean and innovative. The lyrics are eloquently written, and Danielle’s voice is ethereal and intoxicating.

On stage they exude the pulsating energy that fuels their crowd, and every song builds in dynamic and emotional range. Mark and William never stop moving, from slight sways to hard power stances, as if the music has taken physical hold of them.

Off stage they are committed and passionate, yet down-to-earth, artists. They all exhibit a dedication to both the craft and the business of the music they make, which is no doubt driving them toward the opportunities and successes they are working hard to achieve.

Quiet Giant’s debut album loom (with former bassist Robbie Vozza) and their newest single “There’s No Future” are both available at www.quietgiantband.com.

Quiet Giant is: Danielle Capalbo on vox, guitar; Jared Thompson on drums; William James on lead guitar; and Mark Almodovar on bass. - Kait Jaouen, The Photo Ladies

Spoiler Alert: It’s quite likely that Quiet Giant’s May EP You’re In Heaven will land on more than a few Best of 2017 lists. The Connecticut guitar-rock band’s latest effort is a five-song collage of sounds that defies any real genre containment; each song possesses its own distinct personality, and we could have a field day on our psychologist’s couch tracing all the emotions it triggers, while also going full Pepe Silvia attempting to trace its influences and inspirations. - Michael Marotta, Vanyaland