Elizabeth Keeling

Elizabeth Keeling formed in late 2008 when vocalist and songwriter James Havelock began recruiting musicians through craigslist.org to play the songs he had worked on alone for over a year. Guitarists Alex Dzwonchyk (recently transplanted to NYC from Washington, DC) and Andrew Cheong (originally from upstate NY) were brought on board and along with drummer Brian Wojcik, a Long Island native, immediately set about transforming James’ demo tracks into meticulously crafted post-hardcore anthems. After multiple bassists failed to gel with the rest of the band, Paul Guetter of Smithtown, NY auditioned in January of 2009 and it was immediately clear that his complex and eclectic style of playing was the final piece of the layered sound the band was building.

The band tracked their debut EP The Flood Sessions themselves in their Huntington, NY, studio and practice space, and released it on September 1st, 2009, almost exactly a year after the band’s inception. The Flood Sessions’ four tracks embody the vision and soul of Elizabeth Keeling – melodic and powerful, the band’s sound is layered with intertwining guitars, bass lines that are songs unto themselves, and Wojcik’s punishing double bass drum attack. Led by the unorthodox vocals of Havelock, whose emotional palette goes from angelic to demonic in a heartbeat, Elizabeth Keeling is the rare band that can combine the heavy and the melodic into a cohesive whole, and make it sound like a lullaby from the heart of a thunderstorm.