Emerging from Boulder’s eclectic music scene, MYND READER steps forward with a debut album rooted in raw rock and roll, hard-won clarity, and a renewed sense of purpose. Their self-titled record, arriving January 30, 2026, isn’t just a set of songs. It’s a reckoning, a journey pulled from personal chaos and rebuilt into something cathartic, urgent, and alive.
Brian Sachs is no stranger to intensity. Long before MYND READER, he was the drummer for The Authority, the New York jam band that tore through the ’90s with cult-level ferocity. Nights were spent trading improvisation across Manhattan’s roaring jam-rock scene. MYND READER is not a nostalgia trip. Sachs describes it as a more deliberate fire. “The Authority was all about chaos and adrenaline. MYND READER feels like that same energy, but with intention and reflection,” he says. “Back then it was about chasing the next show or the next thrill. Now it’s about making something that feels true to who I am today.”
The trio is completed by multi-instrumentalist Tonin and vocalist and guitarist Shelby Kemp. Sachs and Tonin, longtime collaborators, transformed Sachs’ “downloads,” raw lyrics written during a period of grief and upheaval, into cinematic sonic blueprints. When Kemp joined with his Southern rasp and commanding delivery, the songs found dimension and heartbeat and soul. “Tonin builds the foundation, I add the heart, and Shelby gives it its voice,” Sachs explains. “The songs were waiting for that final spark, and he brought it.” On stage, bassist and backing vocalist Zach Jackson and keyboardist Chris Spies round out the band.
MYND READER’s sound breaks down barriers and genres, fusing soulful rock, Americana, and timeless classic influences. The band channels the urgency of The Black Crowes, the atmospheric sweep of My Morning Jacket, the grit of Chris Stapleton, and the lyrical depth of Wilco and Ray LaMontagne, all while maintaining a distinct rock identity. Multiple singles, including ‘Mourning Light’ and ‘Home,’ are steadily climbing the Mediabase charts across formats, proving the band’s emotional intensity reaches far beyond Boulder.
The album charts a ten-track arc from collapse to clarity. Grief, dissolution, and personal transformation are woven into every note. Sachs says, “These songs came from the moments when my life felt like it was unraveling. Losing loved ones, personal setbacks, big changes. I wanted the record to feel like someone reaching out and saying, you’re not alone.” The LP moves like a deep-breath session, carrying the listener from rupture through release to restoration.
“Home,” the offering’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, 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.
The track carries the unmistakable touch of seven-time GRAMMY winning mixer Michael Brauer, whose analog sensibilities, honed across work with the Rolling Stones, Coldplay, My Morning Jacket, John Mayer, 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.
Other highlights expand the album’s emotional terrain. “Radio Warning” evokes haunting solitude. “Simply Avanti” surges with grit and conviction. “Leaving Our Lives” feels like a sun-bleached Polaroid. “Mourning Light” lingers in grief and devotion. “Birdsong,” paired with a surreal video by director VINSINT, explores pain, rebirth, and cinematic beauty with every note.
With hundreds of thousands of streams building momentum, MYND READER’s debut proves that rock can still be raw, spiritual, and transformative. This isn’t a band chasing trends or fighting for a place in the scene. It’s a band that has arrived fully formed, a rare force capable of holding both heart and fire, intensity and soul, all at once.
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