Glenn Morrow's Cry For Help Releasing 2nd Album

Glenn Morrow's Cry for Help are releasing their sophomore effort, 2, on the Rhyme & Reason label on December 18, 2020. It's being released via digital download and through streaming platforms.

Like many music makers in the current climate, Glenn Morrow and his band Cry For Help needed to find a way forward. The Bar/None Records owner and his band of indie alumni had an album recorded and ready for release just as a pandemic brought the world to a halt. How to put out an album when physical record stores are struggling, live shows are almost non-existent and the amount of noise on the internet makes it hard to promote at all?

With an excess of hope and new context for considering the songs, Glenn Morrow's Cry for Help thrusts their sophomore album into the digital world: 'Two,' or '2,' or 'II,' or just call it 'The Second Album.' Lead single "The Other Side of the Dream," newly remixed by Glenn's old friend Chris Stamey of The dB's and featuring backing vocals by talented North Carolina songwriter Rachel Keil, introduces the record with hints of the influences to expect throughout: '60s AM radio, power pop, '70s glam-leaning rock.

It's an album of hook filled rock 'n' roll songs inspired by the mix of genres Glenn Morrow's Cry For Help grew up on. The bandmates, all music industry lifers, add doses of the post-punk and new wave they were surrounded by as they made their first marks on the music world in the '80s scenes of Hoboken and New York City. Produced by Ray Ketchem (Guided By Voices, Luna, Elk City) at the Magic Door in Montclair, New Jersey it all has a refreshing and welcoming modern shine.

'Two' finds Morrow contemplating the current cultural climate with many tracks clearly influenced by the Trump era. "Yellowed Pages" delivers a cryptic message of isolation, bemoaning the lost intimacy of one on one communication that's left "landlines dead as poetry" even prior to zoom calls. "The Ride" speaks to racial harmony while noting that Martin Luther King Blvd. and JFK Blvd. do not intersect in Jersey City despite the fact that one runs East/West and the other North/South.

Morrow has been running the Bar/None Records label since 1986, after it released music from his band Rage To Live and has managed to keep the label afloat through decades and this difficult modern era.

"The music business has been hit with so much this year," said Morrow" the collapse of the physical music industry, the closing of record stores and pressing plants, a key chemical facility burning to the ground. Still there were bright spots. Bandcamp took off and consumers really embraced acts they liked on that platform. Mail order picked up and after a while record stores have re-opened with multiple record store days. Bands held shows on line and in parking lots. TikTok is creating new viral streams. We are finding ways to innovate." Indeed, a show streamed on the City of Hoboken's Facebook page featuring many longtime Hoboken musicians, including Morrow playing solo, raised over $200K for Covid-19 relief efforts.

Glenn Morrow's Cry For Help was built on the remnants of the Hoboken music scene that centered around the beloved music venue Maxwell's and fostered beloved indie acts like Yo La Tengo, The Feelies, and The dB's (all of which have released music via Bar/None). Currently about to re-open as an Italian restaurant (maybe a little music in the back room?). Morrow played in a couple of bands on Maxwell's closing night and suddenly had the bug to keep moving forward. Over time his current Cry For Help lineup-Morrow on lead vocals and guitar, Ron Metz on drums , Mike Rosenberg on bass and vocals, and Ric Sherman on lead guitar and vocals-came together and suddenly they were playing all over New Jersey and NYC. A self-titled debut came out in 2017 with NPR.org noting "Morrow has never unplugged from the rock 'n' roll current crackling through his bloodstream, and his new material makes that apparent. He's bringing as much energy and creativity to the table as ever but adding the kind of gravitas only maturity can supply." That album leaned into blues and roots with nods to the spirit of Alex Chilton and featured guest keyboards from Andy Burton.

'Two' drifts slightly darker in tone but makes enough hooks to be a pretty good time of a record. "The Sun the Moon and the Scars" provides some humor as Morrow imagines Proud Boys and Antifa facing off against each other: "you can punch your brother in the face or spray him with a can of mace but you still call him bro / he got no particular place to go." In the end, whether we always like it or not we still all live here. Hence, we kinda have to live together. Perhaps there's a song or two on 'Two' we can all gather round.

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