The American Hotel System has been making waves in the Michigan music scene ever since its debut in 2018. With early 2020 bringing the band to the studio to record their sophomore album, Covid-19 influenced a production halt. With all members being separated for nearly four months, they began pouring all of their uncertainties and hopes into lyrics and musical ideas to share over zoom calls, text messages, and e-mails; like musical postcards connecting the band together emotionally. With their most recent release acting as exhaustion in the aftermath of 2020, The American Hotel System brings forth the ease of, “Chains,” to listeners far and wide. In the captivating humbleness that bleeds through each warm guitar riff performed, the elusive depth forms the intrapersonal movement that sways from, “Chains.” The American Hotel System quickly elevates the intimate listening of this track to bring a larger invitation of growth and development as a perfectly balanced cocktail of infectious rhythm, opulent electric chords, massive drum hits, and of course the soothing timbres of the main vocal sitting in the mix.
Reiterating to their audience that at certain moments it’s normal to feel like the cycle of the struggle will never end. They drive home the gratitude they share in the way that the community brings an overbearing amount of love and support to them. Through depicting illustrations of animated imagery, The American Hotel System brings a larger than life energy that circles around the lyrical motif, “If my chains still bring me down, I'm still on the ground.”
Carving out a solidified place for The American Hotel System, the raw emotion that they emit, has them making leaps and bounds above the rest.