The album brims with jangly guitars, driving rhythms, and hooks that echo the spirit of bands like Sister Hazel or the Gin Blossoms. The BIG Reveal nails the '90s vibe -- think crunchy riffs, shimmering chords, and vocals weaving in just enough contemporary polish to keep things fresh. I mean this as an absolute compliment, but I hear hints of the band Hanson here, especially in the vocals. There's a rasp to lead singer Gavin's voice that fits the alt-rock stylings perfectly. The delivery is sincere, with just the right amount of angst. Additionally, the production is crisp, letting the instrumentation breathe and the melodies shine, with subtle modern flourishes that ground the album firmly in 2025.
Opener "New Scars" bursts with energy from the start, featuring lyrics about a doomed relationship, "We're like fire and gasoline/Two separate things/That go together/Like a beach and stormy weather/We've been down this road before/We both know where it ends..." While the following track, "Fallout," keeps the passion high, it's the existential dread tackled on "The World And All" that next grabbed my attention. It's the quiet / loud dynamic from the verses to the chorus that's fully effective in communicating the message. It's the opening lines of the chorus, "I guess we're all a little on edge these days/You know with the end of the world and all," that I find infinitely relatable.
Other highlights are "Me and You," which settles into a nice mid-tempo groove, and "What I Want to Be." The latter displays an ear-pleasing descending guitar line and soloing. Additionally, the title track finds the band wanting to "shoot out the satellites…don't wanna waste any more of my life" in response to a relationship gone sour. Lastly, closer "Imagine That" ends the album all-too-soon, with more tasty guitar work that has a playful swagger to it.
Oh, and these guys are still teenagers?! Amazing. The band is comprised of Gavin Parker (16) on guitar and vocals, Luke Puckett (18) on bass, and Blake Hall (17) on drums. It's a delight to see the amount of power and conviction produced by a trio. This, of course, quickly brought to mind two other 90s pop rock trios in PFR and Switchfoot. I'm pumped about this random find, and looking forward to where the band goes from here. I think the sky's the limit.
Overall, this is an album full of love and lost love horizontal relationships, and well done at that. On subsequent releases, I would love to see the interplay or influence that the faith of the band plays on their relationships via their songs. But for now, this is a great way to spend 38 minutes. The future appears bright for The BIG Reveal. I highly recommend Shoot Out the Satellites if you like the Gin Blossoms, Sister Hazel, Hanson, or 90s/00s pop rock.
- Review date: 7/28/25, written by Josh Balogh of Jesusfreakhideout.com
Record Label: None
Album length: 11 tracks: 38 minutes, 52 seconds
Street Date: April 11, 2025
Buy It: Amazon Music
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Gavin Parker: I've been playing music my whole life and I always wanted a band. So me and some friends from school started playing together, but after a little while, they started focusing on different things like sports and stuff. So I ended up playing with our drummer ,Blake, about a year ago and our bass player, Luke, just recently joined the band in March after our original bassist decided to leave the band.
Gavin: My biggest musical influences are probably Sister Hazel and Switchfoot. If you are familiar with any of Sister Hazel's music, I think you can definitely hear the influence. I think they kind of encapsulate that '90s pop rock sound that I love so much. Switchfoot could also possibly be heard in some of our songs, but I think the Switchfoot influence can be more easily seen in how we are Christians in a rock and roll band who aren't afraid to show their faith while also making music outside of the Christian genre.
Gavin: The songwriting process usually goes back and forth between me and my dad. My dad is a songwriter and has been for a long time, so he just has all these old songs lying around. Sometimes me and him go through the songbooks and find a song from the '90s and early 2000s that could work for the band and then try it out. Some of the heavier songs on our album were ballads that we tweaked to fit the band and they turned out really well. Still, some of the songs on the album were written within the last year.
Gavin: One of my favorite songs that I've written is an unreleased song called "You Alone". It is a song that could easily be taken as an explicitly Christian song and I think that it kind of catches people's attention. They're sitting their enjoying our songs about love and different things and then they hear "You Alone" and hopefully that lets them have a little more of an idea of who we are as a band and as people. If I was choosing a song off of our album, I would pick the title track "Shoot Out The Satellites". It's a song that me and my dad wrote together and I think it kind of encapsulates our sound as a band.
Gavin: Although our faith might not be explicitly seen in our lyrics at first glance, we do try to let people see our faith, whether that be in our music or how we conduct ourselves. I hope that our faith is not seen in just our music or our lyrics but in everything that we do. We are a "Christian Band" in the same way as someone would be a "Christian Plumber". They may not be on stage singing worship songs, but their faith is being seen in their everyday lives. That being said, our song "Fallout" does have biblical imagery recalling the passion week of Christ.
Gavin: I don't know if we have experienced that issue personally yet, but it is definitely a real thing. I think that there are a lot of great Christian songs that come from honesty. As I said earlier, Jon Foreman from Switchfoot is a huge influence of mine and his lyrics on some particular songs are very honest. His song "Jesus, I Have My Doubts" is almost like a brutally honest prayer being put into a song and it resulted in something great. That song probably wouldn't be sang at Sunday morning worship service, but it is authentic and real. So, I think the best songs usually are going to come from places of honesty.
Gavin: I think it could be seen as both in some ways. We have a couple of explicitly Christian songs, but most of our songs are about life, love, and other things. Like I said earlier, our faith should be seen in everything we do, not just our music. Our ministry should transcend our music and bleed into our everyday lives. So, yes our music could be seen as a way to draw people into the ministry, but the ministry should be us shining our light everyday in our regular lives and not just in our music or on stage.
Gavin: I think the biggest challenges we face as a young band is getting people to see past our age. Being teenagers in a serious band can help and harm in some ways. Some people might give you more attention because you're young and some people might completely dismiss you for the same reason. But that leads into another issue that everyone faces ,which is getting in front of the right people. You could be on stage pouring your heart out, but if you're in front of the wrong crowd it doesn't translate to them. That's why I also think that it is important to find the people who relate to your music and build around that.
Gavin: My favorite memory from performing live would probably be playing the Biloxi Crawfish Festival at the Mississippi Coast Colosseum. Getting to share the stage with so many great bands at that particular venue was pretty close to a dream come true. Performing there and seeing our band name on the lineup next to all those bands that I've listened to since I was a little kid was pretty amazing.
Gavin: My dream event to play would definitely be the Cornerstone festival if it were still around. The 2004 lineup for Cornerstone was definitely one of the best with Switchfoot, P.O.D., and Relient K. A current event that I would love to be a part of is the Uprise Festival.
Gavin: I think the main goals for us in the next year is to secure more opening spots for bands that we would relate to. I feel like getting in front of as many people as possible who appreciate our style of music would definitely step things up for us. Another goal is just to continue building a fan base on the Gulf Coast and creating more and more of a buzz around our name. Maybe eventually go on tour.
Gavin: We have an album out on all streaming platforms called, Shoot Out The Satellites. We are currently working on some new songs for the second album. Hopefully we have much more music and many more shows to come!
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