The Whimbrels is the eponymous debut album by a power art-rock band with lineages to some of the most influential and raw music New York has produced – loud art with a back beat.
Producer Jim Santo mixed and mastered at Tiny Olive Studios in Queens. Principal tracking took place in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, at Carousel Studios, Steve Silverstein at the controls. Additional recording took place under the supervision of Jason LaFarge at Seizure’s Palace, in Gowanus and at Tiny Olive. Dromedary Records will release The Whimbrels on June 27 on 12” LP vinyl, CD, digital download and streaming platforms.
The Whimbrels is an outer-borough masterpiece. The sound is dense, polyrhythmic, hard, and sweet, hooks and riffs to save your soul pop out at unexpected moments. The players’ credits – The Glenn Branca Ensemble (dating to the 1980s), The Swans, J. Mascis – predict the guitar-driven, sonic onslaught of The Whimbrels, captured on their startling debut.
A Whimbrels show involves racks of guitars, tuned in different and unconventional ways with the players constantly switching between them. The Whimbrels album showcases this. There are counterpoint choirs, dueling e-bows phase against each other, chunking, poly- and cross-rhythmic interludes, soaring arias of distortion from Westberg and Evans’ strangely melodic and inventive guitar. Evans’ and Hunter’s vocals front a three-guitar lineup tuned every way but normal. The ax men are veterans with contrasting styles that come together in a potent whole. The beats are smart and unrelenting. The album concludes with the instrumental Four Moons of Galileo, four short sections with the inner two framed by shimmering walls of descending, slowly evolving harmonies. The title recalls the four moons discovered by Galileo, suggesting the many more then lurking unknown in space.
Today, Glide is excited to offer an exclusive premiere of the standout track “Scream For Me” along with its music video. Building tension out of the gate with a feedback-laden wash of guitars, the song quickly propels forward with a hypnotic beat and urgent vocals. There is a punk-meets-art-rock energy to the music that drones and wails as the band shares simple lyrics that speak to the power of the music. The three-guitar attack veers from harmonic notes to serrated shredding, making for a song that is as mysterious as it is fun. The visuals of the video only accentuate the chaotic beauty of the music.
band leader Arad Evans describes the inspiration behind the song:
“When we play this song, it feels like running downhill so fast your legs can’t keep up. The only message it carries is how much fun you can have with a weird meter like 7/8. It puts the RAWK back into art rock. Bud Jones’ video takes you on that trip, rushing through the night.”
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