The Black Angels

Schedule

Sat Nov 13 2021 at 08:00 pm to 11:00 pm

Location

The Glass House | Pomona, CA

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Doors 7:00pm
About this Event
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Death Song is the first full-length release in four years from The Black Angels – Austin’s five-piece psych rock masters – and their debut for Partisan Records.

Written and recorded in large part during the recent election cycle, the music on Death Song serves as part protest, part emotional catharsis in a climate dominated by division, anxiety and unease. “Currency,” a strong contender for the heaviest song the band has ever put to wax, meditates on the governing role the monetary system plays in our lives, while slow-building psychedelic earworm “Half Believing” questions the nature and confusing realities of devotion.

Recorded between Seattle and Austin, Death Song features production from Phil Ek (Father John Misty, Fleet Foxes, The Shins). The 11-track collection offers a sharply honed elaboration on their signature sound - menacing fuzz guitar and cutting wordplay, steeped in a murky hallucinatory dream.

The band will tour extensively behind Death Song, including a headline set at one of the first-ever shows at new NYC venue Brooklyn Steel on May 2nd. Full itinerary below for “The Death March Tour”, which begins in Nashville. The band will be supported by A Place to Bury Strangers.

Since forming in Austin in 2004, The Black Angels have become standard-bearers for modern psych-rock, and the New York Times has said they “play psychedelic rock as if the 1960s never ended, and they are absolute masters of it”. The band has toured with Queens of the Stone Age, Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Black Keys + more, and played festivals such as Glastonbury, Fuji Rock, Primavera, Harvest Fest, Coachella and Bonnaroo. Two of the band members co-founded Levitation Festival (formerly Austin Psych Fest) in 2008, which has since grown into one of the best-reviewed and expertly-curated festivals in the country (returning in 2018).


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L.A. Witch’s self-titled debut album unfurled like hazy memories of late night revelries in the city center creeping back in on a hungover Sunday morning. Guitarist/vocalist Sade Sanchez purred and crooned over jangling guitar chords, painting pictures of urban exploits, old American haunts, and private escapades with a master’s austerity. Bassist Irita Pai and drummer Ellie English polished the patina of the band’s vintage sound, adding a full-bodied thump and intoxicating swing to the album’s dusty ballads, ominous invitations, and sultry rock songs. The album had an air of effortlessness, like these songs were written into the fabric of the Western landscape by some past generation and conjured into our modern world by three powerful conduits. The band readily admits that L.A. Witch was a casual affair and that the songs came together over the course of several years. That natural flow hit a snag when the band’s popularity grew and they began touring regularly, so a new strategy became necessary for their sophomore album, the swaggering and beguiling Play With Fire.

Where L.A. Witch oozed with vibe and atmosphere, with the whole mix draped in reverb, sonically placing the band in some distant realm, broadcast across some unknown chasm of time, Play With Fire comes crashing out of the gate with a bold, brash, in-your-face rocker “Fire Starter.” The authoritative opener is a deliberate mission statement. “Play With Fire is a suggestion to make things happen,” says Sanchez. “Don’t fear mistakes or the future. Take a chance. Say and do what you really feel, even if nobody agrees with your ideas. These are feelings that have stopped me in the past. I want to inspire others to be freethinkers even if it causes a little burn.” And by that line of reasoning, “Fire Starter” becomes a call to action, an anthem against apathy. From there the album segues into the similarly bodacious rocker “Motorcycle Boy”—a feisty love song inspired by classic cinema outlaws like Mickey Rourke, Marlon Brando, and Steve McQueen. At track three we hear L.A. Witch expand into new territories as “Dark Horse” unfurls a mixture of dustbowl folk, psychedelic breakdowns, and fire-and-brimstone organ lines. And from there the band only gets more adventurous.

Between their touring schedule, studio availability, and the timeline for releasing records, L.A. Witch found themselves with only two months to do the bulk of writing for Play With Fire. They holed up for January and February, essentially self-quarantining for the writing process before March’s mandatory COVID shutdown. “As far the creative process goes, this record is a result of sheer willingness to write,” says Sanchez. “When you sit down and make things happen, they will happen, rather than waiting to be inspired.” The time constraints and focused writing sessions ultimately forced the band into new territories. “I’ve definitely learned that having restrictions forces you to think outside the box,” says Pai. “That structure really brings about creativity in an unexpected and abundant way.” While L.A. Witch isn’t looking for a total transformation, they’ve stridden boldly forward with the amped up riffs and slashing fuzz lines of “I Wanna Lose.” Even the song’s message, a celebration of defeat as a starting point for rebirth and redemption, wields a kind of gravity that feels new for the band. “Gen-Z” carries a heavy weight as well, as Sanchez ponders the rise suicide rate in a generation raised with social media between lashings of air-raid siren guitar leads. “Sexorexia” wields a fiery garage rock energy unmatched by any other moment in their catalog; “Maybe the Weather” is a minor-key country tune given the cosmic treatment of hard-tremolo keys, woozy backward slide guitar, and heady production techniques; and “True Believers” offers up a filthy noise-inflected punk scorcher. The album wraps up the “Starred,” a druggy exploration of exploratory guitar squall built on Pai’s grimy fuzz bass and English’s propulsive groove. Over the course of Play With Fire, it feels like we’ve traversed the history of American rock n’ roll from it’s rugged cross pollination of blues and country music, through the psychedelia of the ‘60s, into the early punk scene of the ‘70s, and landing at the damaged art rock of early ‘80s New York City.

Play With Fire is a bold new journey that retains L.A. Witch’s siren-song mystique, nostalgic spirit, and contemporary cool. Despite the stylistic breadth of the record, there is a unifying timbre across the album’s nine tracks, as if the trio of young musicians is bound together as a collective of old souls tapping into the sounds of their previous youth. Suicide Squeeze is proud to offer Play With Fire to the world on August 21, 2020 on CD/LP/CS/DIG formats. The first LP pressing is limited to 1,500 copies worldwide—1k on translucent yellow vinyl and 500 label exclusive copies on clear with red and black splatter. Both cassette and vinyl come with a DL coupon.





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Where is it happening?

The Glass House, 200 West 2nd St, Pomona, United States

Event Location & Nearby Stays:

Tickets

USD 25.00

The Glass House Pomona

Host or Publisher The Glass House Pomona

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