Graveyard Club

Graveyard Club (Matthew Schufman (vocals, synths), Michael Wojtalewicz (guitar), Cory Jacobs (drums) and Amanda Zimmerman (bass, vocals) began inspired by a unique list of shared interests: the classic short stories of sci-fi author Ray Bradbury, the music of Ryan Gosling’s little-known band Dead Man’s Bones, and a fascination with both 50’s crooners and 80’s pop music. With an ever-growing reputation as one of Minneapolis' most entertaining and moving live acts, Graveyard Club has released three albums and an EP of their haunting brand of synthpop. They perform regularly at top Twin Cities venues (First Avenue & 7th Street Entry, Fitzgerald Theater, Icehouse), and have toured nationally - supporting artists such as Elliot Moss, The Drums, Methyl Ethel, Cayucas, San Fermin, Beverly, and others. In 2018 and 2019 they performed at the Iceland Airwaves Festival in Reyjkavik. Graveyard Club's songs have also been featured in television and film on MTV, HBO, and Netflix, amongst many others, and they continue to receive critical acclaim from local, national, and international press.

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In my dining room hangs a large wooden sign with the word “bittersweet” hand-painted on it. I bought it many years ago at a small antique shop in Minneapolis. The store owner told me it was from a nearby apple orchard, no doubt labeling different species or taste profiles of the fruit.  However, I was drawn to the word’s suggestion that most things in life contain multitudes of meaning and emotion, and I have carried the sign with me wherever I have lived.

 As I am searching for words to describe our most recent record, Moonflower, I feel like “bittersweet” fits perfectly. 

 Moonflower, after all, is a bitter record.  It’s a record made by thirty-somethings who are perhaps starting to feel their age. Many of the tracks are fraught with the anxiety of someone realizing that maybe it’s time to hang up some of the dreams from younger years. The things you bet on that didn’t pay out.  After the youthful optimism has faded, what’s left is the question stated in the lead single Valens: “where is this going?”.  There is a specific feeling of immortality that comes with being young, and while some tracks revel in that, others, like Halloween and Elegy are about contending with the end of the line.

 However, Moonflower is also a sweet record.  It is filled with nostalgia for yesterday.  It revels in the melancholic sweetness of childhood and young adulthood.  It longs for space to dream, plan, and ponder what to do with this one life.  Songs like Nowhere, Spellsong, and Rose Vine are packed with nervous butterflies. Spirit Boy, is a love song written to my childhood self - just trying to remember all the ways I was once a wild being filled with endless imagination and enthusiasm for life.

 Moonflower is an attempt to balance these two narratives – the longing for yesterday, and coming to grips with today – in all its ecstatic highs and defeating lows. There is a certain beauty in acceptance, and Elegy, the album closer, tries to own that sentiment: “today I woke up feeling older, drag the lake, the summers’ over”, but ultimately rejects any definitive revelation and acknowledges the uncertainty of the present: “It’s all ahead or all behind me”.

Matthew Schufman, Graveyard Club

PRESS:

The Minneapolis quartet Graveyard Club makes moody synth rock befitting its name. “William,” a standout from the group’s album “Goodnight Paradise,” out Friday, is a brooding, yearning electro-goth song about reflecting on death to learn something about life. If it hasn’t been plucked to soundtrack “emotional realization” moments on screens of all sizes, music supervisors are sleeping on it.

CARYN GANZ, The New York Times

Whether you grew up with New Order, The Cure, The Smiths, or Echo & the Bunnymen or dig artists like Real Estate, DIIV, Wild Nothing, The Drums, or Arcade Fire this band and album are for you. Graveyard Club draws from, and connects, these great artists while having a unique and expressive voice all their own. Goodnight Paradise is a beautiful record. It's honest, melodic, catchy, layered and simple yet complex - it's a perfect pop album.

JAKE RUDH, Transmission, Minnesota Public Radio - The Current

Minneapolis' Graveyard Club sound like The Cure without the bouffant hair and smeared lippy or Echo & The Bunnymen wearing t-shirts and shorts on the beach. On tracks like "The Night is Mine" they breathe new life into the usually dark and gloomy genre of goth rock. - NME

Minneapolis’ best kept secret - Vanyaland

New wave revivalists Graveyard Club have been hanging around since 2013, but with a sophomore album due out this year, 2016 feels like a good omen for the Minneapolis foursome. Though their sound is a tad retro, Graveyard Club is more than a nostalgia act for fans of The Cure and New Order. Matthew Schufman's soaring vocals and synth work makes Graveyard Club's music feel immediate, and grand gestures like "Sleepwalk" and "Fire in the Sky" from Nightingale create a heart swell when delivered at high volume. Their live show is a genuine conversion experience.  - Go 96.3

Their new EP ‘Sleepwalk’ is a six-shooter of nostalgic, beat driven atmospherics reminiscent of the better parts of the 80s shoe gaze movement... that other-worldly aesthetic permeates the tracks with reverb drenched synths and lilting vocals coming at you like a phantom teenage fantasy. -Killer Ponytail