Archive for the ‘CLASSIC ALBUMS’ Category
The MANIC STREET PREACHERS – ” Gold Against The Soul ” Deluxe Edition Reissue
Posted: June 15, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSICTags: Gold Against The Soul, Manic street Preachers, Nicky Wire
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DEEPER – ” Auto- Pain “
Posted: June 15, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSICTags: Auto-Pain, Chicago, Deeper, Illinois, Nic Gohl
Deeper know tragedy better than most. While recording their sophomore album Auto-Pain, guitarist Mike Clawson left the band due to deteriorating relationships with the Chicago group’s other three members. Later, after their record was finished and the post-punk act was touring in Europe, they received the news that Clawson had taken his own life. Throughout this catastrophic period, Deeper decided not to let Clawson’s passing derail their tour and release schedule, instead using them as a way to pay tribute to his contributions to the band and speak out about mental health .
As lead singer and guitarist Nic Gohl mentioned in an interview , Auto-Pain was completed prior to Clawson’s death, but the album’s lyrics, written as a stream of consciousness, took on a completely different meaning. And it’s hard to listen to them any other way: Some depict graphic images of self-harm and violence (“Forced to set yourself on fire tonight / You shouldn’t count on the sun” from “Run,” or “I just want you to feel sick / Cause you’re better as you’re lying on the bathroom floor” from “Lake Song”) while others are a bit more abstract (“Is it any wonder / I feel so gray” from “Esoteric”). Auto-Pain is an album built on hues of blacks and grays, depicting a shadowy, sinister world. Clawson’s suicide turns those already gloomy colours into something several shades darker.
Auto-Pain represents the constant wave of depression felt by many in everyday life. Stemmed from Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’, Auto-Pain is a concept meant to be an inverse to soma, a pill in the book which makes everything numb. The idea of auto-pain is to epitomize the desire to return to a connection with thoughts and clarity, which comes at the expense of feeling everything simultaneously. The album artwork features the now-demolished Prentice Women’s Hospital in Chicago capturing the band’s rounded-off brutalism, and the album title appears in Urdu, a nod to drummer Shiraz Bhatti’s Pakistani heritage.
Released March 27th, 2020
A portion of the proceeds from Auto-Pain will be donated to Hope For The Day an organization that actively works to break the silence surrounding mental health.
MT JOY – ” Rearrange Us “
Posted: June 14, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSICTags: Dualtone Music Group, Matt Quinn, Mt Joy, Sam Cooper
Mt. Joy co-founders Matt Quinn and Sam Cooper have enjoyed somewhat of a boomerang-like creative relationship.
A journey that saw both drift apart after high school and reunite following subsequent relocation to Los Angeles, a crossing of paths that led to the outfit’s formation four years ago. A 2018 self-titled debut would later follow, offering a slice of soulful, if rather ubiquitous, middle-of-the-road fare, tracing the footsteps of a myriad acts crowding the field of contemporary folk.
The latter trend is marginally upheld on Rearrange Us, the furniture ever so slightly repositioned, dusted down and daubed with new paint; the stronger crossover elements of their first album transposed into tighter and brighter entities that are given increasing space to breathe. Tracks such as “Death” present the band branching into more effusive mood-summoning aptitude, alternating as it does between plush guitar hooks and placid piano floss, despite the killjoy sentiment of its title. The slacker retro-tapping “Let Loose” harnesses similar energy, Quinn’s vocals crooning in sync with rippling keys, “Witness” wearing the unmistakeable influence of Conor Oberst on its plaid-clad sleeve. This along with the feel-good balladry of “Strangers”, inoffensive and breezy as it is, may prove enough to briefly distract from current woes or just as easily reinforce them – dosing on a cheery, happy-go-lucky balladry astutely designed for the benefit of set-closers.
As far as second albums go, Mt. Joy amble beyond the tentative trepidation of previous output. And while perhaps trite to invite comparison with Mumford & Sons’ banjo-playing antics, both seem geared towards similar objectives nonetheless – moments, in this case, baring more than a passing resemblance to the barnstorming bombast encouraged by the London-based quartet. It is a sure-fire formula that underpins Rearrange Us, aiming for arena-heights and just about reaching such.
Witness is out now. It’s one of our favourite recordings we’ve ever made. It’s a heavy tune, but there’s real redemption in getting to tell your story in song. It’s been amazing to see the response to it, and we can’t wait for you to hear how these songs fit into the record we made. Our producer Tucker Martine crushed it. Special thanks to Patti King, Mirabai Peart, and Anna Fritz for the strings on this one. We are so proud of this damn record
Mt. Joy “Strangers” available on Dualtone Music Group,
Released on: 2020-02-19
GHOSTLY KISSES – ” Never Let Me Go ” (EP)
Posted: June 14, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSICTags: Akira Records, Ghostly Kisses, Margaux Sauvé., Never Let Me Go, Quebec
Ghostly Kisses is the dreamy pop music of singer songwriter Margaux Sauvé. Today is the release of “Never Let Me Go” EP. We’ve put a lot of work in these songs, we explored ways that we never did before. The music is now yours! , Thank you to everyone involved.
Composed mainly on her travels, “Never Let Me Go” is a 22-minute concentrate of dreamy, intimate and emotionally charged music. Margaux Sauvé called on Louis-Étienne Santais for the production, with the collaboration of the producer and engineer of his Alex Ouzilleau.
She details each of the pieces of her EP.
Call My Name
For Call My Name, Louis Étienne and I wanted to explore more organic sounds and feel human depth. Drums, a string quartet, electric guitar and harp were recorded to add a greater dimension to the piece, cinematic sounds and a little oriental touch.
Lydian
I wrote Lydian more than two years ago. She talks about following her instincts, listening to an idea, pursuing her dreams. Making music in life as a career is an idea that grew in my mind for several years before becoming clear. The moment I realized it was a great relief. This song is about that moment.
Barcelona Boy
Louis-Étienne and I were in Barcelona during the Catalan crisis in 2017. One evening there were a lot of protests outside and we decided to stay in our apartment and not go out. We always travel with my little Yamaha keyboard reface CP and that evening we started playing in the apartment. That’s where Barcelona Boy started.
Where Do Lovers Go?
Where Do Lovers Go? Talk about my last breakup. For several months, I was in a kind of denial and I tried to convince myself that the situation could get better and that we could reconcile. Where Do Lovers Go expresses the last attempt at reconciliation and negotiation, the desire to find the other halfway.
Stay
The song Stay took me a long time to write. She also talks about this latest breakup, but more about the moment I finally accepted that despite the sadness, it couldn’t work.
Ghostly Kisses’ Never Let Me Go will be available on all platforms on June 5th. In a moment of great challenges and pain, I wish that we could all be kind to one another
Released June 5th, 2020
Composition: Margaux Sauvé, Louis-Étienne Santais
Lyrics: Margaux Sauvé, Vann Delorey
Special thanks to the musicians who played on the album.
String quartet: Caroline Béchard, Jany Fradette, Marie-Claude Perron, Suzanne Villeneuve
Harp: Marie-Rose Lehoux
Guitar: Antoine Angers
Mandoline, Acoustic Guitar: Charles-Auguste Lehoux
Drum: Alex Kirouac
WAXAHATCHEE – ” Saint Cloud ” Best Albums Of 2020
Posted: June 14, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSICTags: Best Albums Of 2020, Katie Crutchfeld, Merge Records, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Saint Cloud, Waxahatchee
It isn’t like Katie Crutchfield to slow down. For the past 15 years, the 31-year-old artist has been a member of four different bands, starting with the Ackleys when she was still in high school. The moment one project ended, Crutchfield always seemed hard at work beginning a new one, churning out an endless quality of music with bands like Bad Banana, P.S. Eliot, and Great Thunder.
In 2017, Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfeld quite literally blew the music world away. Her record Out in the Storm, one of the best albums of that year, displayed a whole new side of the singer. Gone were the fortified bedroom pop of 2015’s Ivy Tripp, the rock-tinged freak-folk musings of her 2013 stunner Cerulean Salt and the brainy lo-fi recordings of her 2012 debut American Weekend. Out in the Storm sounds like its title suggests: loud, windy, chaotic and emotionally intense—a tried-and-true breakup album and a throwback to Crutchfield’s punk roots. While she was already beloved among indie circles, that release took her to the next level—new fans, considerable press buzz, a massive tour starring her and her twin sister Allison.
But 2018 was different. Crutchfield had spent years trying to quit drinking, but after a raucous European tour with Waxahatchee, she decided to commit to the decision. “I was telling everyone around me, ‘I’m just gonna take a break,’” she says “Then in my head, I was like, ‘I am done.’”. “For a while, I completely didn’t recognize myself,” she continues. “When you’re in kind of a bad way on tour, there’s just nothing worse than going on stage.”
The decision was part of a larger plan to slow down in general. Where she used to rush to process her feelings through songwriting, Crutchfield now found herself pausing to take care of herself first, to use therapy to work through her emotions before considering them as material for her songs.
Crutchfield’s fifth album as Waxahatchee, is the result of Crutchfield taking that time to breathe. It’s an album about seeking security in relationships, whether they’re romantic or platonic. Throughout, there’s a beautiful simplicity to Crutchfield’s writing. “When you see me, I’m honey on a spoon,” she sings on “Can’t Do Much,” a folky love song built on big, strummed guitar. There are also moments of self-doubt and weakness, the kind that cuts right to the big questions that hang over relationships like storm clouds. “We can try to let the stillness be,” she states cautiously on “The Eye,” “But if I spin off, will you rescue me?”
“I feel like in the past I’ve been like, ‘You’re doing this and you’re doing that,’ like—pointing the finger,” Crutchfield says, jabbing the air. “At times, that’s been important and good for me to do. But with this record, I’m really pointing the finger at myself, and loving my people unconditionally.”
In the past, the music Crutchfield made as Waxahatchee was defined by a kind of jagged quality—her soft vocals offsetting a crunchy, wall-of-sound indie rock (“chaotic and claustrophobic,” is how she describes her last full-length, Out in the Storm). But there’s a startling clarity on Saint Cloud, which traffics in a minimalist, Americana sound that makes Crutchfield’s voice sound naked in comparison to her previous work. “[My producer] Brad Cook was like, ‘We follow your voice,’” Crutchfield says. “He would help me build songs around the way that I was strumming, the way that I was singing. That was the first time a producer had done that. In the past people were either not paying attention or trying to shape it.”
That clarity is also the sound of Crutchfield settling into a genre she admits, to some extent, she’s been fighting her whole career: country music. Growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, Crutchfield was raised on artists like Emmylou Harris and Loretta Lynn, and she emulated them as a child. But when she discovered punk as a teenager, she rejected country in a fit of textbook rebellion.
“I began to fight with those tendencies, and I think that resulted in some really cool music on my early records—fighting with my more traditional sounding voice or saccharine melodies,” she says. “But I’m kind of reaching this point where I’m like, no, this is a really big part of who I am. And it’s always been a part of the way I tell stories and the people who influenced my storytelling. It’s almost like this weird self-acceptance.” The way Dolly Parton wrote about frustrating relationships—what Crutchfield calls her “fun, jaunty” approach to them—influenced the song “Hell.” Borrowing some of Parton’s over-the-top intensity from songs like “Jolene,” Crutchfield sings: “I hover above like a deity, but you don’t worship me.” “I wanted to write a song that’s a little bit psycho,” Crutchfield says. “Everybody feels that way sometimes.”
Nostalgia for the music she grew up with soon became a kind of general nostalgia for the South. A Philadelphia resident for nearly eight years, Crutchfield decided she was going to move back to Alabama and buy a house. “Then I got to Birmingham and realized there were a million reasons why I left,” she says. She ended up settling in Kansas City after spending long stretches of time there with resident and boyfriend Kevin Morby. “I live such a relaxed life right now,” she says. “We have a sauna at our house,” she says, laughing.
Talking about Saint Cloud, it’s clear Crutchfield has completely retooled her relationship with music and touring. “In the past I’ve been a pusher, just kind of rushing and compromising a lot just to get it done,” she says. “I forced myself to slow down.”
“Every time you make a record, you have a vision, but it’s a bit of a crapshoot how it’s actually going to turn out,” she says. “You just get on the bus and hope it gets you to your destination. And I’ve never hit the bullseye more than I did with this.”
Saint Cloud, Crutchfield’s fifth album under the Waxahatchee alias out Friday, March 27th on Merge Records
SORRY – ” Snakes “
Posted: June 14, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSICTags: 925, Asha Lorenz, London, Louis O'Bryen, Sorry
London duo Sorry have shared another track from their upcoming debut album, “925”, via Domino Recordings . “Snakes” is slithery and dark with synth strings bringing a little cinematic feel to the proceedings. Sorry are hard to figure out. The London group’s beguiling songs unfold with a curious dream-world logic, saxophone blurts and keyboard tinkles piercing through the all-encompassing haze of seductively moody indie rock. Even when they’re detailing the hedonistic excesses of the rockstar lifestyle, the core duo of Asha Lorenz and Louis O’Bryen sings with a winking ironic detachment, their drawling, disinterested voices circling playfully and finishing each other’s sentences. It’s hard to know just what to make of them, but it’s even harder not to fall under their spell.
Sorry – “Snakes”, taken from the debut album ‘925’, released 27th March on Domino Recordings.
BOB DYLAN – ” Rough And Rowdy Ways “
Posted: June 14, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSICTags: Bob Dylan, Columbia Records, Rough and Rowdy Ways
Just when it looked like Bob Dylan was settling into a semi-retirement of regular touring punctuated by strangely reverent standards collections, he comes careening back into the spotlight with his best album in a decade, if not two. Bracketed by deeply referential mirage-like epics “I Contain Multitudes” and “Murder Most Foul,” Rough And Rowdy Ways fills out its run time with a career-spanning assortment of sounds, from stately ballads to stomping roadhouse blues. He also proclaims, “Key West is the place to be if you’re looking for immortality” — and if anyone could speak authoritatively on that subject, it’s Bob Dylan.
“Rough and Rowdy Ways” is Bob Dylan’s first album of original new material in 8 years and his first since becoming the only songwriter to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 2016. Its 10 tracks include the three new songs released this spring: the album’s lead-off track, “I Contain Multitudes”, the nearly 17-minute epic “Murder Most Foul” and “False Prophet”. This is Dylan back to his best, and not a Sinatra cover in sight.
Sharp and precise in its references, descriptions, and personal confessions, Bob Dylan’s Rough and Rowdy Ways is thematically universal and powerfully prescient, in many ways acting as the culminating expression of the apocalyptic spirituality that’s preoccupied Dylan since his earliest recordings. It’s also a masterpiece of mood as much as lyrical poetry, and as stunningly and surprisingly atmospheric as many of the major musical achievements in a career more associated with monumental song writing than sonic mastery. This is an album that showcases a similar comprehensive spectrum of ideas, attitudes, citations, perspectives, stories, and jokes as Dylan’s greatest recordings. True, many of these are grave, but the few hopeful spots—like “I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You” and “Key West (Pirate Philosopher)”—are well-earned and, quite simply, beautiful. Latter-day Dylan is the man behind “To Make You Feel My Love” as well as “Not Dark Yet,” and along with dispensing fire and brimstone, Rough and Rowdy Ways keeps romantic and spiritual faith alive, through both the fervour of unshaken convictions concerning the high stakes of the soul as well a basic yearning for love, companionship, and peace. As with his best work, the album encompasses the infinite potential for grace and disaster that can be clearly discerned but rarely summarized in the most turbulent of ages.
It’s Dylan’s 39th studio album and his first long-player of original material in eight years (the last being Tempest in 2012).
Bob Dylan new album for release on CD on 19th June 2020 and double vinyl LP on 17th July.The maestro’s first album of original new material since since 2012’s “Tempest”.
2CD and 2LP formats available to pre-order now.
Web site prices include UK shipping, the print and CD package will be shipped in a larger card envelope than a normal CD.
( UK shipping is tracked and insured for vinyl formats )
The 10 track album contains the fantastic “Murder Most Foul” and the newly released single “False Prophet”.
WESTERMAN – ” ‘Your Hero Is Not Dead “
Posted: June 14, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSICTags: London, Westerman, Will Westerman, Your Hero Is Not Dead
It feels like an age since Will Westerman released ‘Confirmation’ in 2018, a curious, brilliant alt-pop bop about trying not to overthink things. The west Londoner’s debut album arrives two years later at a time when our collective psyche feels under even fiercer strain and examination. By deciding to include that song on his album, Westerman notes that nothing much has changed. What first inspired him to make music was the “unspoken understanding” it gives to our lives. And he’s still learning.
‘Your Hero Is Not Dead’ is an entrancing exploration of the psyche that considers the fallibility of being human. Amid its waterlogged guitars and metronomic drum machine beats lie gleaming acoustics and chirping synths. Vocally, comparisons to lofty folk experimentalists Arthur Russell and John Martyn are justified. Gentle guitar and piano hammock Westerman’s effortless tenor. The drums on here are snappy and crisp, and the production is immaculate. For as reserved as this batch of songs are, Westerman loads in an impressive level of detail. Each listen reveals a new synth layer I have never heard, or a hidden drum pad cleverly woven into an intricate rhythmic fabric.
Lyrically, too, Westerman plays with juxtapositions, such as lathering a soothing balm on the chronic pain depicted in ‘Think I’ll Stay’. He loops brisk acoustics and a muted ‘80s electric guitar to carry the listener in a dreamy drift. “Turn back now, Comanche / Walk me through the blue cornered sundown, he sings over reverb-laden rim taps. Westerman muses about environmental destruction without wallowing too much in it, opting instead to appreciate what remains of earth.
‘Big Nothing Glow’ and ‘Waiting On Design’, meanwhile, utilise more opaque lyrics, fidgety structures and peculiar melodies to present abstract thought. They work to reflect the fluidity of conceptual thinking. “Paper your cracks just to keep them alight Westerman muses on the former; “22,24 let me inside or once / Or twice on the latter. But even a smart arse would struggle to wholly understand what he’s singing about.
‘Waiting On Design’ starts as a beat-shifting guitar ditty punctured by electronic glitches. It takes a while to find its rhythm, limited by a cadence-style chorus that effectively resets the song each time. It feels like a hard listen – maybe that’s the point.
Elsewhere, ‘Think I’ll Stay’ and ‘The Line’ showcase Westerman’s ability to snap his melodic synapses into action. On the former he employs aquatic guitars and squelching beats to craft an oddly uplifting song about appreciating life in the face of persistent pain. ‘The Line’ slowly nestles under your skin with cajón drums, lithe guitars and luminescent ‘80s synths that recall early Peter Gabriel. Here, Westerman notes a disintegrating relationship: Stuck with the infinite / Is there a place for us’?.
It almost seems tongue-in-cheek: Whipping up a bit of internet fervour with the immaculate single “Confirmation,” refining the aesthetic over a handful more, then finally delivering an anticipated full-length debut called… Your Hero Is Not Dead. And then Westerman manages to balance ruminations over abstract moral and existential concerns with music that is strikingly beautiful throughout. Aided by Bullion’s crystalline electronic textures, Westerman uses his transfixing voice and serpentine guitar to perfect his singular sound, reaching for the horizon in “Waiting On Design” or conjuring yet another sublime, glimmering vision of a pop song in “Blue Comanche.” Your hero is indeed far from dead — he’s just now assuming the mantle.
Westerman does well to investigate the multiple facets of being human instead of regurgitating art’s favourite topic – love – on this impressive debut. Somehow, he manages to tame the album’s kinks into a cohesive if not beguiling whole that’s eminently challenging and comforting to listen to.
released June 5th, 2020;
BRAIDS – ” Shadow Offering “
Posted: June 14, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSICTags: Braids, Braids Musique Inc., Canada, Montreal, Raphaelle Standell-Preston, Secret City Records, Shadow Offering
Prior to recording “Shadow Offering”, Braids’ continued intentions were to manipulate guitars to the point of being unrecognisable. Indeed, they have since admitted they felt they had succeeded once the guitar was hidden between layers of textures, loops and effects.
On their fourth full-length LP, the Canadian group have made a conscious choice to bring guitars to the forefront of their sound again. They rediscovered the instrument as a “vehicle for cathartic release, drawn to its visceral and authoritative qualities,” and were keen to embellish and utilise its imperfections and the spontaneity it can bring to a performance or recording. Montreal-based indie trio Braids will release their new album “Shadow Offering” on June 19th via. Co-produced with Chris Walla of Death Cab For Cutie, the album finds the band at their most personal, unabashedly flexing a new sense of confidence through songs that reach a higher level of artistry and collaboration.
New single ‘Just Let Me‘ explores the push and pull of a relationship, the narratives created between partners, and inevitable hardships of love. The accompanying video features singer Raphaelle Standell-Preston’s directorial debut with collaborator Derek Branscombe.
“The song was born of a desire to get through to one’s partner, to work through those feelings of complacency, stagnation, of pointless arguments; when you feel your partner, though sitting across the table from you, is further away than if they were not there at all,” stated the band. “It’s a yearning to understand how a love that was once there and so clear, could slip away. It asks the universal question that so many relationships encounter along their journey – where did our love go?”
With former Death Cab For Cutie guitarist Chris Walla in the producer’s chair, they entered into a new world of experimentation, utilising a plethora of equipment from Audio Kitchen amps, a 1967 Rickenbacker 340 and a 1963 Gibson LG-1 to masses of outboard gear and a reamping chain that included multiple rack units including an Elysia Mpressor for live sidechaining and even tremolo and phased vibrato effects.
A multi award-winning band, Shadow Offering follows their acclaimed 2015 album Deep in the Iris – which won the 2016 Juno Award for Alternative Album of the Year – and could be considered their most honest and intuitive yet. Here, the band detail their five favourite guitar parts on the album, from discovering chorus pedals to using their drummer as a rotary speaker…
“Eclipse marked our first taste of the front-and-centre roll the guitar would come to play on this record. While tracking, we were uneasy over what elements would lead the mixes, and how a myriad of instruments and sonic explorations would all glue and fit into songs. We never recorded a record this way – producer at the console, amps and live tracking sessions, capture over construct. It required a leap of faith on our part, something a group of three highly strung control freaks admittedly struggled with.
With Eclipse, Chris and Raphaelle experimented ad nauseum with wonky open tunings for deep and resonant chords. We also discovered chorus – something we foolishly avoided for years. With Chris’s guidance, we coloured outside our comfort zone. Listening to the first mix draft was a decisive turning point in our process. After months spent chasing an ephemeral ‘idea’ of what guitars might bring to our songs, we finally developed the film so-to-speak, and the image staring back at us was bold, expansive and all-encompassing. Needless to say, we were pleasantly reassured that what we were striving for was possible.”
Snow Angel
“At once jarring and visceral, tracking for Snow Angel was also a moment of joy, of exalted discovery. After laying down the song’s basic structure, Raphaelle had asked to be set up in the live room on a whim, amps pinned, for a few takes of unscripted overdubs. It was a moment of flexing and experimenting with the musicality of an extremely loud amp. And for Raphaelle, the birth of an emotional conduit just as immediate as the human voice, to provide emotional armour, and a violent counterpart to the album’s most confessional and raw poetry.”
Fear Of Men
“This song is Austin’s shining guitar moment. Austin doesn’t play guitar, he plays drums and as such had a spare hand to lend during our guitar tracking sessions. With the amps cranked, we set him up in the live room – heavily earplugged – and got him to be a real live rotary speaker. Microphone-in-hand, he spun around the room in his best ‘flanger’ impression, and the resulting audio is about as bespoke a ‘swirl’ effect as one could hope for.”
Young Buck
“We mixed Shadow Offering in our Montreal studio. The studio has two rooms – control and live. We spent a month mixing, and a typical day saw Chris [Walla] and Mike our mix engineer in the control room working on a mix, while we spent the day in the live room, chasing all sorts of extra parts for second verses and second choruses, intros and outros.”
“We’d reconvene once in a while to share progress, listen to mixes, and trade song progress back and forth. We’d been battling with the groove in Young Buck, struggling to get the mix to lock. Upon listening to the n’th rough mix, it suddenly came into focus. Through sheer relief, we didn’t ask too many questions at the time, and it was only while digging through stems, long after the mixes were wrapped, that we discovered Chris had clandestinely been tucking layer upon layer of palm muted guitar parts into the mix, gluing the song together.”
Just Let Me
“Stories and process and memories aside, Just Let Me is our favourite guitar ‘moment’ on the record. At every step of the way, the song is structured around creating this luscious and blooming key change, centred on two interlocking guitars. If at the outset of this record we wanted to take a swing at guitars-as-centrepiece, this is the moment in which we unapologetically enjoy the fruits of this journey.”
Shadow Offering is out June 19th on Braids Musique Inc. and Secret City Records. Braids’ new album “Shadow Offering”
EMPTY COUNTRY (CYMBALS EAT GUITARS) – ” Ultrasound “(ft. THE WRENS)
Posted: June 14, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSICTags: Cymbals Eat Guitars, Empty Country, Joseph D’Agostino, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Tiny Engines Records
Empty Country is a new project from Cymbals Eat Guitars frontman Joseph D’Agostino, and he just announced that he’ll release his debut album on Tiny Engines in 2020. Ahead of that though, he just shared his debut two-song single, “Ultrasound” / “Jets.” And making it even more exciting, “Ultrasound” features Charles Bissell of The Wrens.
With Cymbals Eat Guitars, Joseph D’Agostino trafficked in indie-minded iterations of classic rock, from epic Built To Spill freakouts to neon Springsteen worship. So it only follows that his new project would plow headfirst into the great wide open. D’Agostino’s debut album as Empty Country plays like a drive through the heartland, except instead of coast to coast it takes you to the 1980s and back. Along the way it connects the dots between “Pink Houses,” Red House Painters, and the houses on all those memorable emo album covers.
The Cymbals Eat Guitars guy has a new project and it sounds like Desparacidos. Well, it doesn’t quite evoke the ire of fifty Kum & Gos, but “Ultrasound” paints with the same sonic palette as Conor Oberst’s snarling anti-consumerist ventilation, blending Joseph D’Agostino’s sludgy garage-punk instrumentation with a vocal performance a few quivers shy of a jorts-clad Oberst. At times it sounds like a demo version of a LOSE-era Cymbals Eat Guitars track, though it mostly feels like a totally new direction for the Philly-based songwriter.
Empty Country “Ultrasound” released at the end of last year on Tiny Engines Joseph D’Agostino, the lead singer/songwriter of Cymbals Eat Guitars, announced his new project Empty Country. Debut Album out on Tiny Engines
