FULL BIO / LINER NOTES for POSTCARDS OF THE RECKONING
PRESS:
WFUV (Alisa Ali):
"Coming across the music of Jersey City-based Sean Kiely's is like unearthing a gem. His intricate, lush, and detailed folk songs are arresting in their gentle beauty.
"Irises," the opening track from Kiely's latest album, 2024's Postcards of the Reckoning, cuts right through the static of a busy mind. Everything else fades away, and you're transported to a calm and peaceful place. All eight tracks on this album stay with you like a comforting friend."
JERSEY CITY TIMES:
"Reckoning: that’s a good, hard word. It’s a word that comes with overtones of the Bible, the American West, piracy, shootouts, the Grateful Dead. At a reckoning, serious stuff goes down. Past sins need to be redressed. Emotional states need to be estimated, and future plans need to be made. We don’t tend to get postcards from a reckoning for good reason. Those involved have their hands full.
But if you could freeze that moment in time and return to it in song, it might be possible to retrieve something from the conflagration before everything is consumed by fire. That’s what Jersey City singer and songwriter Sean Kiely has done on Postcards of the Reckoning, a frank, intense album that’s among the best to be released in the Garden State in 2024. Over gorgeous folk-rock as reminiscent of David Crosby’s solo discs as it is of more contemporary strummers, Kiely summons epiphanies, excoriating self-assessment, and moments of clarity in the middle of storms. Sometimes the set plays like a confession, and sometimes it feels very much like an apology. Yet it is not a cry over spilled milk. Even as they acknowledge what they’ve lost, Kiely’s characters are oriented toward the future." - Tris McCall
NJ.com:
"Kiely might not be singing of green fields of shamrocks, but the vibe is very much the same, warmly nostalgic and evocative, with stories of lost love and acceptance but optimism and rebirth, too. Influences waft through these tracks like old friends in a dream, a snatch of Irish fiddle or a few bars of classic Grateful Dead finger-picking suddenly adding nuance and meaning. The songs calm the mind but also surprise and delight the senses."
NO DEPRESSION:
"Your Logo, My Logo is one of those sublime and unassuming efforts that sneaks up on you until you find it won’t let go." - Lee Zimmerman
JERSEY CITY TIMES:
Sean Kiely’s folk-rock songs grow like beautiful brambles. He takes compositional risks and chases beauty into the sonic thickets, and he loves to astonish and surprise. Some of his songs are as winsome and delicate as snowflakes, others are barbed, and more than a few are quite funny – in a dry, knowing sort of way. Kiely sings this all in a bell-clear voice with inerrant pitch, and when he’s got some buddies along to harmonize with him, they approach the spectral quality of Fleet Foxes, and maybe even some of David Crosby’s solo projects. Kiely has been doing a monthly series at Fox & Crow (this’ll be the third installment), a room that suits him as snugly as Fenway fits the Boston Red Sox. Seriously, they should just hand him the keys. He’s been calling his series, which includes guest performances by comedians and poets as well as musicians, “A NICE Night,” which fits the genial nature of his project, and also his wry sense of humor and literary irony. He’s one of the best we’ve got. - Tris McCall
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NJ.com:
"The Jersey City singer-songwriter is back with his second album, "Your Logo, My Logo," a grand, acoustic, folk-rock journey through America's recent adventures in the realms of "money, entertainment, news, sports, tribalism, failure, success, love, death and distraction.'" - Summer Dawn Hortillosa
INTERVIEW w/ Mecca Lecca
NJ Arts Reviews Nirvana, If Only 7"
"Sean Kiely isn’t a busker, but he makes the kind of music that can fit into tight corners. In so doing, he’s carrying on the Jersey City tradition of flexible, exploratory, quasi-psychedelic folk-rock."
