New Madrid’s self-titled album is due out April 30 via Lemonade Records. The 10-song set was produced by Drew Vandenberg (Bambara, Faye Webster) and finds the band revisiting the southern indie rock sounds of their 2012 Yardboat debut while exploring new elements of dreamy psychedelia, jangly pop, and energetic post-punk. “It feels like a cool re-set,” says bassist Ben Hackett. “This is the closest to what the band has always sounded like in our heads.” It’s the band’s first release since 2016’s acclaimed magnetkingmagetqueen (New West Records).
If we can count on one thing from New Madrid, it’s a tell-tale raucous ragged ride that combines the worlds of Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Drivin N Cryin and Oh Sees. “Queen For A Day” (below), the second single from New Madrid’s forthcoming self-titled LP is no exception to that stripped-down rock approach. Steady vocals coarse through the track surrounded by a driving rhythm section and laid-back guitar musing as lead singer Phil McGill is focused and fierce.
Of the track, McGill offers, “For me, it makes me think about the power behind looking for all the answers of the universe by just sliding around your phone screen. It was the fall of 2016 and I was curious about the poetic legal term ‘Queen for a Day,’ that in short means your words cannot be used against you in a court of law primarily in the case of Government investigations. It’s granted to powerful government officials who might have desirable pertinent information in a pending case. The world was spinning as it was, and the rules of the already tilted game board were being pushed to their ends. There was an absurdity to the evil that was lurking in plain sight. Felt like I was seeing the hands of the puppeteer in the frame.”
Photo by Joelle Grace
