Inside the Spiritual Rock Revival of MYND READER and Their Debut Self-Titled Album
In partnership with Artist Formula Record Group
By Will Jones
Rock bands don’t often talk about healing anymore, but MYND READER isn’t interested in posturing or playing it cool. The Boulder, Colorado outfit built their self-titled debut album, out January 30, 2026, around the idea that rock and roll can still be a place for revelation, for reckoning, for the kind of honesty most bands outrun. At a time when irony is the default setting in modern music, MYND READER moves in the opposite direction. They lean inward.
Three Forces, One Vision
The project formed around three distinct forces: multi-instrumentalist Tonin, vocalist and guitarist Shelby Kemp, and drummer and lyricist Brian Sachs, a veteran whose résumé reaches back to The Authority, the Bill Graham managed New York jam band that carved out a cult-level presence through the 1990s Wetlands era. Sachs spent those years in packed rooms, sweat-soaked stages, and nights trading electricity with Phish, Blues Traveler, and Dave Matthews Band as Manhattan’s jam-rock ecosystem roared at full tilt.
A Continuation, Not a Second Act
To hear him tell it now, MYND READER isn’t a second act. It is a continuation. “If The Authority was fueled by youthful chaos and raw adrenaline, MYND READER is the grown version of that fire,” Sachs says. “It’s shaped by digging into the soul. Back then I was chasing success; today I’m searching for truth. This album is the bridge between the guy I was in my twenties and the man I’ve become.”
From Studio to Stage
For the album’s live translation, bassist and backing vocalist Zach Jackson and keyboardist Chris Spies expand the trio into a full-fledged, road-ready lineup, pushing the record’s dynamics into something even louder, grittier, and more immediate.
Concept and Sound
The band’s debut is a ten-track concept LP tracing a path from collapse to clarity, exploring survival, redemption, and the restorative power of sound. Blues-soaked vocals, atmospheric guitar lines, and chest-deep rhythms create a landscape that is intimate and sweeping, spiritual and loud.
Origins of the Music
Sachs and Tonin sparked the project after reconnecting in Boulder. Sachs had been filling notebooks with what he calls “downloads,” raw and unfiltered lyrics written during a period when everything in his life felt like it was breaking apart. Tonin began shaping those words into sonic blueprints. The missing piece came when Shelby Kemp entered the picture, his voice carrying a lived-in grit that fused instinct, emotion, and weight. “Tonin and I create from instinct, not ego,” Sachs says. “He gives me the sonic skeleton, and I breathe life into it. Shelby gives the songs a soul.”
The Emotional Centerpiece
“Home,” the album’s emotional centerpiece, is where MYND READER’s purpose sharpens into focus. It is a soaring, wide-open anthem about belonging, a memory, and the moment when a room full of strangers suddenly feels connected. “This one’s about the place you belong, whether it is a person, a town, or a song,” Kemp says. “Home” received Thanksgiving weekend airplay on Out Of Order with Stryker, Ted Stryker’s nationally syndicated iHeart show airing on ALT 98.7 Los Angeles. Stryker, the iconic LA alt-rock personality and former KROQ morning co-host, brought the song to listeners on over 20 additional stations across the country.
Mixing With Purpose
The track carries the unmistakable touch of seven-time GRAMMY winning mixer Michael Brauer, whose analog sensibilities, honed across work with the Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Coldplay, My Morning Jacket, John Mayer, James Brown, and Ray LaMontagne, give the whole record a lived-in, purposeful warmth. “When I first heard MYND READER, it took me back to Paul Rodgers and Bad Company, that pure, unfiltered rock energy,” Brauer says. He went for big guitars, dry vocals, and drums with worn-in soul, pushing the mixes to reveal the truth inside them.
Building Momentum
Momentum has already begun building. Singles like “Mourning Light” and “Home” have climbed the Mediabase charts across formats. Hundreds of thousands of streams in recent months have pushed the band into a growing lane between genres, soulful rock layered with Americana, classic rock lineage, and something unmistakably modern. There are echoes of The Black Crowes urgency, My Morning Jacket’s atmospheric sprawl, the grit of Chris Stapleton, and Wilco’s storytelling instincts, but the band’s tone is entirely its own.
Expanding the Album’s World
Other album cuts deepen that identity. “Radio Warning,” inspired by Sachs’s solitary treks through the Alaskan backcountry, explores isolation and connection. “Simply Avanti” delivers a straight-from-the-gut surge. “Leaving Our Lives” unfurls like an old photograph, warm and worn. “Mourning Light” lingers in loss before the dawn breaks. “Birdsong,” paired with a striking VINSINT directed video filmed in Mexico’s surreal dunes, widens the project’s cinematic world.
What sets MYND READER apart is not just the music but the purpose behind it. Their debut album works like a reminder that rock and roll does not have to be ironic or hollow. It can be spiritual. It can be raw. It can be transformative. MYND READER is not selling nostalgia. They are building something that feels necessary.