Federale has always told stories through music, of course, but fans hadn’t much opportunity to parse lyrics within the band’s first two albums. La Rayar: A Tale of Revenge (2008) and Devil in a Boot (2009) spun blood-soaked yarns through music alone – concertedly-cinematic soundscapes of rumbling riffs, plaintive whistling, and soaring soprano vocals soundtracked the most captivating spaghetti westerns that never were. Singer Collin Hegna, already entrenched within the Brian Jonestown Massacre and soon to become longest-tenured bassist of Anton Newcombe’s famously-troubled psych-rock revue, made clear from the start that Federale existed purely as an instrumental project. Still, certain projects defy even the strictest of boundaries. Three years later, The Blood Flowed Like Wine (2012) brought along guest appearances from frontmen KP (Spindrift) Thomas and Alex (Black Angels) Maas. After a string of notable shows –The Fillmore, Crystal Ballroom, Henry Fonda Theater — they earned a reputation for live performance, and Hegna took to the mic himself for much of 2016’s All The Colours Of The Dark.
By now, learning that the band’s new album No Justice, out November 8th via Jealous Butcher Records, contains only a pair of vocal-less tunes shouldn’t seem any more surprising than news that its release has been scheduled for Mexico City – first stop along a summer filled with festival appearances up the west coast from Austin to Seattle.
Embracing the enormous scope of orchestral cinematic production courtesy of members of the Oregon Symphony, Federale has honed a taut, gleaming precision from their signature sound. When Collin Hegna’s honeyed baritone waltzes with the operatic wizardry of bandmate Maria Karlin, the finely-etched lyrical depths fortify Federale’s cinematic sway. Spare yet sumptuous, distilling the lean, gritty essence of grindhouse anomie and wielding orchestral flourishes of widescreen delicacy, No Justice feels like the defining statement of a band fully-realized – a sultry, restless stormcloud arising from the darkness at the edge of town to draw forth the fated reckoning.
Today Glide is excited to premiere “Aim for the Heart”, a song that in name alone speaks to the essence of what Federale has always been about. With unmistakeable surf-meets-desert-twang guitar and ghostly vocals that sound like they’re ricocheting off the wall of a canyon, the song is a hard-hitting spaghetti western rocker. Dark, mysterious imagery complements the haunting pedal steel and fuzzed out psych soundtrack. Musically, packs a huge wallop with sonic layers that converge into a cactus-strewn, technicolor hellscape.
Collin Hegna describes the inspiration and process behind the song:
“‘Aim For The Heart’ was one of those rare songs for us that came together really quickly. Generally, our music has these grandiose string and horn arrangements that can take some time to craft. Sometimes I forget that underneath these big arrangements lives a guitar band that can flesh out a song entirely on its own. This song was built around the guitar riff and I knew that it was headed in a fuzzed-out psychedelic direction from the get-go. Once we got the distorted guitars and combo organs going we realized that what we had was a bit more Black Angels than Ennio Morricone.”
LISTEN:
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One Response
I thought Colin had left the BJM…?