(October 12, 2021 – Toronto, ON) Today, Band of Horses are announcing their sixth studio album and their first record in more than five years, Things Are Great which will be released January 21, 2022 via BMG. Sonically the album is a return to their earlier work and the kind of raw ethos that lies at the heart of Band of Horses. The album is available for pre-order HERE.
“Crutch”, the first single from the album is out today and an unguarded first look at what fans can expect. With as much symbolic iconography as a Frida Kahlo lithograph, “Crutch” is a gorgeous, guitar-driven masterpiece which captures exactly why they are still one of the most important bands of their generation. Listen to “Crutch” HERE (single artwork HERE).
Band founder Ben Bridwell tells us, “I think like a lot of my songs, ‘Crutch’ starts with something from my real life. Obviously ‘Crutch’ means some of the things that I was dependent on. My relationship for one. I think I wanted to say, ‘I’ve got a crush on you,’ and I thought it was funny how relationships also feel like crutches. I feel like everybody has had a time when nothing goes right and you still have to carry on. I think that feeling hits you in this song even if you don’t know what the specifics are.”
This time around Bridwell took a bigger role in production than he ever has previously, producing or co-producing every song on the album. He brought in old collaborators including Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle, Dave Fridmann, and Dave Sardy, but it’s not just old friends who were able to help Bridwell achieve the sound he envisioned. For the first time he worked with engineer Wolfgang “Wolfie” Zimmerman. The two had an instant connection which can be felt throughout the record.
Emotionally intense, both on a personal and elemental level, the songs for the most part were written before the world shut down, when all of us were faced with our own mortality and began to take stock of our lives. Here we find Bridwell more autobiographical than he’s ever been on record detailing the nebulous frustrations and quiet indignities of relationship changes and what a person will do to make things right. And what you do when you can’t.
Band of Horses have been making their mark on the festival circuit this summer, playing Lollapalooza, Firefly and Austin City Limits this last weekend. They go straight into 3 nights of intimate shows at Brooklyn Made starting October 18th before continuing their U.S fall tour. All tour dates are listed HERE.
Angels & Airwaves have officially announced that their highly anticipated sixth studio album, LIFEFORMS, will be released on September 24. They have also announced an extensive tour, beginning on September 29 of this year that will extend into 2022. Both of these announcements were first made from space, when the band partnered with Sent Into Space to launch a renewable hydrogen capsule which played an out of this world premiere of the entire album along with displaying the tour and album information – watch HERE.
This celebration extends to the release of the band’s second track from the forthcoming record entitled “Restless Souls” which is written from the perspective of God as a letter to humanity regarding life’s trials and the necessity for humans to demonstrate resiliency.
Canadian heavy alt-rock duo cleopatrick release their highly anticipated debut album, BUMMER via the band’s own label Nowhere Special Recordings, distributed by Thirty Tigers. Listen to the album HERE. Alongside the album release, the Cobourg, ON-based two-piece have unveiled the video for their latest single “VICTORIA PARK”.
Vocalist and guitarist Luke Gruntz had this to say about the track, “From the moment we wrote VICTORIA PARK we knew it would be the opening track on BUMMER. It’s the sonic mission statement for our debut album. It’s our thesis. Our first impression. It’s named after a real Victoria Park here in Cobourg, Ontario Canada. A place where Ian and I have both spent countless summer days and nights throughout our lives. It’s a green space that was named after Queen Victoria in an effort to impress the crown, during a time where this town was so young and prosperous that they truly believed they could be chosen as the capital of Canada.
Gruntz continues, “Standing here today in what is now a sleepy rural retirement community, I feel a strange sense of tragedy lingering around this park. In my eyes, it is a monument to a long-lost ambition, and for that reason, it inspires me.”
Toronto-based songwriter/multi-instrumentalist and long-time Fast Romantics member Kirty announces her new solo album We Are All On Fire will be released on August 20, 2021 via Postwar Records.
Alongside the album announcement, the captivating songstress releases a dreamy new track off of her forthcoming solo LP, “Turn You On” and its grotesquely dark and comedic accompanying video, which is premiering via Exclaim!. Says Kirty of the new single, “Turn you on” — a deceiving song title considering this has nothing to do with sex. I wrote these lyrics in a stream-of-consciousness-state one day as I was thinking about the peaks and valleys of trying to make something of yourself in the music business. The good, the bad, and the ugly.”
Conceptualized and shot by director Anne Douris and featuring award-winning Canadian actor and comedian Chris Locke (Baroness Von Sketch Show, Mr. D), the video for “Turn You On” is full of fun, creepy weirdness, and sees Kirty literally consumed by a hedonistic bourgeois. “It’s about feeling consumed, overwhelmed, overworked, and overly digested, and Anne’s concept and treatment matches that sentiment in a splendidly gory way,” shares Kirty.
“Turn You On” follows the poignant, grungy, distortion-rich single, “God Help Us” and the melancholy early 90s-inspired track “This Year’s Been Hell”. The singles found support on marquee playlists like Spotify’s New Music Friday Canada, Indie Playlist BIRP! and Indie to go and garnered praise from outlets like Ottawa Life, Exclaim!, Spill Magazine, Dusty Organ and ET Canada who dubbed Kirty “the coolest woman in the province.”
Toronto-based songwriter/multi-instrumentalist and long-time Fast Romantics member Kirty releases the poignant, grungy, distortion-rich single, “God Help Us” and unveils its fiery and poetic accompanying video. Co-produced with long-time collaborator Josh Van Tassel and Fast Romantics bandmate/songwriting partner Matthew Angus, “God Help Us” had its Canadian radio premiere yesterday evening via The Strombo Show on CBC Radio. The melancholic track will appear on Kirty’s forthcoming solo album set for a release in summer 2021. Click HERE to listen and purchase.
With devastatingly heart-breaking lyrics like, “Broken minds screaming lies out of their hideout, dressed in fear they reappear and we’re all crying our eyes out, “God Help Us” was inspired by a number of tragic incidents the songwriter observed on the news one evening.
“God Help Us is a tiny window into my thoughts in moments where I’ve felt like I’m watching the world fall to pieces,” shares Kirty. “Witnessing a series of the most horrible things happening in the word, strung together in half an hour of television is an intense feeling, and we’re all absorbing this waterfall of information every single day.”
Kirty continues, “As the song reflects on some of these issues, it also sits on the mantra of “if there is a god, god help us” which to me is my surrendering statement to the chaos that’s swirling around me, but also touches on some larger questions and personal perspectives.”
Directed by Matthew Angus with art direction from Raven Shields, the video for “God Help Us” explores themes of fire and ice and places a spotlight on the internal struggle that many of us have felt over the course of the past year. “The video plays with themes of fire and ice (as the second verse references “burning through seasons of fire and snow”), and by the end of the video everything’s on fire. Not just on fire, but I’m there…watching everything burn,” explains Kirty “Isn’t that kind of how this year felt? Like you were just sitting there watching things burn?”
“There are moments when I feel like everything happening in the world seems so far away, and I’m left (for a moment) sitting there, hopeless, shocked, angry (etc.) at the lack of control and the impact of the damage. This song and video for me captures that moment. There are a lot of other reasons for the imagery, movements, and visuals of the video, but I’ll let people take what they need from it.”
“God Help Us” follows the dreamy, early 90s-inspired pop rock single “This Year’s Been Hell”. Although written before the pandemic hit, the aptly-titled tune resonated with both media and fans alike. ET Canada shared, “the coolest woman in the province has captured the melancholy, the morose, and yet the persistently melodic tone of 2020,” while New Jersey’s Come Here Floyd praised, “Purity in talent, glistens brightly in front of your eyes and shines to glorious effect.” Featuring Kirty’s lush, ethereal vocals, paired with moody guitars and warm, glassy retro synths, “This Year’s Been Hell” found support on marquee playlists like Spotify’s New Music Friday Canada, Indie Playlist BIRP! and Indie to go, as well as, support from CBC radio.
Kirty’s forthcoming LP follows her 2016 acclaimed self-titled sophomore release which the Toronto Star dubbed “your new favourite thing” and the National Post praised “it makes a fine soundtrack for everything from a walk in the park to an evening under the stars… and fits right in on a playlist with the likes of Jenny Lewis, Lana Del Rey and Neko Case.” The release found success on CBC Radio’s Top 20 chart and garnered international placements in commercials and TV including landing lead single and one of CBC Music’s Songs You Need To Hear “That’s Not Me” on a global marketing campaign for EOS, as well as notable sync features in popular teen drama Riverdale and Canadian sitcom Kim’s Convenience.