Central California quartet Slow Season premiere the second single from their forthcoming new album, Westing today via Metal Injection. The banging new track "Damascus" is available to hear and share HERE. (Direct Soundcloud.)
Consequence of Sound recently launched the single "Y'Wanna", which is available to hear and share HERE. (Direct Soundcloud).
Contrary to the band's name, downtime is a rarity for Slow Season. Sandwiched between summer 2015's extensive tour with their RidingEasy labelmates Mondo Drag and Electric Citizen,
plus several short west coast jaunts, the hard-working quartet also
found time to hammer out its most powerful and ambitious album yet.
Written, engineered, produced and mixed themselves on their own
equipment, entirely on analog tape, Westing is a hard-hitting and powerful reminder of how at one time a rock 'n' roll band could be a transcendent experience.
While Slow Season's sound continues to effortlessly nod to the great bands of the 60s-70s, Westing
is truly the sound of a band coming into their own. The songwriting is
tight, howling and hypnotic. The sound is classic, yet refreshingly
new.
"It's
a different album," says drummer and primary recording engineer Cody
Tarbell. "But we never have wanted to find a particular sound or any one
thing and be attached to it permanently. A big part of our records is
experimenting." The Visalia, CA band -- Daniel Rice (vocals, guitar),
David Kent (guitar), Hayden Doyel (bass), and Cody Tarbell (drums) --
has recorded all of their albums on reel-to-reel at Tarbell's home
studio in a cornfield. This affords them the time to experiment getting
sounds, while maintaining focus on the most important notion that
performance is key. As with previous albums, recording was pretty
immediate, tracked between January 15th and the beginning of February
2016 to 16-track tape and mixed to 2-track tape.
Equally
as ambitious as the band's self-sufficient production is the sprawling
lyrical theme to the album. Thematically picking up where the Slow
Season's previous full length Mountains left off, Westing tackles some heady issues.
"Westing
follows a loose narrative about our nation's loss of innocence as it
explores its frontiers," vocalist Daniel Rice explains.
"Re-contextualized in a story about an unnamed protagonist faced with
choosing between different ideological allegiances and his own social
identity." From song to song, the album follows what Rice explains as,
"the unholy trinity of greed+power+violence, the injustice wrought from
this, persisting in willful ignorance, and reaping what is sown." A deep
conceptual arc, for sure, and one that adds further weight to the Slow
Season's intensity.
Album opener "Y'Wanna"
erupts from the speakers as if the band couldn't even wait for the tape
to start recording. it's a full-throttle rocker reminiscent of Zep's
"Immigrant Song" with sly reference to "Four Sticks", all groove and
pummel. "Flag" keeps things rolling along with its bouncing, stop-n-go
guitar riff. The 6/8-time blues sway of "The Jackal" echoes early
Sabbath malefic boogie, while "Saurekonig" is a cavernous and volcanic
mass driven by huge drums, ringing slide guitar and ominous drone.
"Damascus" is a rollicking anthem driven by Tarbell's syncopated
hi-hat/snare interplay and Rice's explosive wail proving just how much
of a dynamic powerhouse Slow Season has become. Throughout, Westing is a smart and snarling rocker that sounds like rock 'n' roll records should: massive, infectious and inviting repeat listens.
Westing will be available on LP, CD and download via RidingEasy Records on July 8th, 2016. Pre-orders include a free immediate download of the first two singles and are available HERE.
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