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CHAPEL HILL, NC — August 31, 2026 — Crank Stallion has released its debut album, Cheap At Twice The Price, a 12-track collection that introduces the Chapel Hill, North Carolina trio on its own decidedly unconventional terms.

Released August 29, 2026, Cheap At Twice The Price is the first full-length recording from Jon Dowse (Keys/Bass/Moog), Wes Lambe (8-string Hybrid Guitar/Bass), and Ben Maschal (Drums/Bass).

Crank Stallion mixes elements of avant-garde and progressive rock with jazz grooves, Cuban and cumbia rhythms, funk, hip-hop, and psychedelia. The result is music that can be intricate and muscular, playful and angular, deeply groovy and completely unpredictable.

At the heart of the band is a musical relationship that goes back to middle school. Jon Dowse and Wes Lambe have played together since middle school, and that long-running creative bond helped shape a sound that is both familiar and strange. With Ben Maschal’s pulse anchoring the chaos, the trio creates music that feels suspended in its own dimension—untethered, elusive, and entirely present.

Cheap At Twice the Price captures that chemistry across twelve tracks.

1. Get Real Down

2. Pawn Shop Lover

3. Night Sweats

4. Dynamite

5. Turpentine

6. Jaz, Pt. 1

7. Seen You Lookin

8. Butterscotch

9. Plum Jelly

10. Black Cherry

11. Spice

12. Jaz, Pt. 2

Crank Stallion offers special thanks to executive producer and master of everything, Saman Khoujinian, for making it all happen with his magical touch.

Khoujinian is a longtime engineer and producer within North Carolina's independent music community, with recording and production credits spanning artists including The Dead Tongues, Blue Cactus, and other Triangle-area projects. 

The band also thanks Fidelitorium Recordings, the Kernersville studio founded by North Carolina musician, producer, and engineer Mitch Easter. Easter’s work as a musician and producer helped define an important chapter of North Carolina’s independent-rock history.

Special thanks as well to @fidelitorium_recordingsand @smallpondfarmncfor the creative spaces that helped bring Cheap At Twice The Price to life.

Although Cheap At Twice The Price is Crank Stallion’s debut album, the musical relationship at its center is anything but new.

Dowse and Lambe have been making music together since middle school. Years later, the addition of Maschal created the three-piece that would become Crank Stallion—three musicians bringing different instruments, influences, and approaches into the same room and seeing what happens.

Released August 29, 2026, Cheap At Twice The Price is available now on Spotify.

Crank Stallion is a three-piece rock band from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, mixing elements of avant-garde and progressive rock with jazz grooves, Cuban and cumbia rhythms, funk, hip-hop, and psychedelia.

Jon Dowse (keyboards, Moog), Wes Lambe (8-string guitar-bass), and Ben Maschal (drums) create music that feels suspended in its own dimension—untethered, elusive, and entirely present.

Jon and Wes have played together since middle school, their bond shaping a sound both familiar and strange. With Ben’s pulse anchoring the chaos, the trio creates music that exists somewhere between composition and improvisation, groove and experimentation.

As The Local Music Spot put it, a Crank Stallion performance sounds “entirely from another time”without making it clear whether that time is the past or the future.

Cheap At Twice The Price is Crank Stallion’s debut album. www.crankstallion.com