STREAM: “Feel The Chill” (track commentary) –
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STREAM: “Ever Loved Once” –
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Americana stalwarts Blitzen Trapper recently announced their seventh studio album, appropriately titled VII, out Oct. 1, and now have added a second leg to their previously announced Fall tour.
Their first release for Vagrant Records is full of the vivid folk-rock-campfire-tales frontman Eric Earley is so well known for. With Blitzen Trapper, there’s always a good story behind each and every song, so to help tell these stories, Eric Early is offering his own track-by-track video commentary for the whole album, starting with
VII opener “Feel The Chill,” a Southern adventure that takes us down a crooked bend so dark and gloomy you can smell the heat and feel the humidity oppress you.
“Each song starts from a small place, a headwater-like remembrance and then widens into a song. For instance, that old wreck of a shack buried in evergreen and murky darkness at the bend in the road up on Jackson Hill where we used to drink, never failed to give me a chill driving by in the old Impala for it’s implacable mystery,” Earley notes.
Tracks like “Thirsty Man” speak of love in a Dylan-esque fashion where Earley reveals “love like rain falls in the wasteland and slips thru the fingers – for love is a thing that cannot be held, only felt and released”. “Drive On Up” is a soulful, almost bluesy rendition of small town tales of quirkiness. “It seems you’re always driving on up to something.” Earley amuses, “into the mountains to see a girlfriend above the reservoir where she lives in a single wide with her mom and a cougar stalks us at fifty yards through the brush, she says to bang sticks but never look it in the eye.”
VII moves effortlessly from track to track, allowing Earley to paint the colorful pictures that play in our head while singing along. “…there are those songs I keep writing over and over again, “Ever Loved Once” with all its regrets and tragic lost love, “Don’t be a Stranger” its hopeful cousin but they all still point to the same worn out place in the heart of old E. Earley. And hey, we all have that place, that worn spot on the heart like the chew canister circle on the back pocket of blue jeans, or that one shred in the green felt of the table where you ground the stick in too hard… May these songs minister in ways mysterious and eternal, or at least maybe make you shake a hip.”
BLITZEN TRAPPER
09/17 Omaha, NE – The Waiting Room
09/18 St. Louis, MO – Old Rock House
09/19 Lexington, KY – Cosmic Charlie’s
09/21 – 09/22 Bristol, VA – Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion
09/23 Nashville, TN – Mercy Lounge
09/24 Birmingham, AL – The Bottletree
09/25 Athens, GA – 40 Watt Club
09/26 Saxapahaw, NC – The Haw River Ballroom
09/27 Washington, DC – Black Cat
09/28 Hartford, CT – Arch Street Tavern
09/29 Boston, MA – Royale
09/30 Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
10/03 Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg
10/04 Buffalo, NY – Tralf Music Hall
10/05 Toronto, ON – Lee’s Palace
10/07 Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
10/08 Milwaukee, WI – Turner Hall
10/09 Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue
10/10 Fargo, ND – The Aquarium
10/12 Bozeman, MT – The Filling Station
10/13 Missoula, MT – Top Hat
11/05 San Francisco, CA – The Regency Ballroom
11/06 Los Angeles, CA – The Troubadour
11/08 Pioneertown, CA – Pappy and Harriet’s
11/09 La Jolla, CA – Porter’s Pub
11/10 Tucson, AZ – Club Congress
11/12 Austin, TX – The Parish
11/13 Dallas, TX – Club Dada
11/15 Denver, CO – Bluebird
11/16 Salt Lake City, UT – The State Room
11/20 Leavenworth, WA – The Leavenworth Festhalle
11/21 Bellingham, WA – The Wild Buffalo
11/22 Vancouver, BC – Biltmore
11/23 Seattle, WA – Neptune
11/30 Portland, OR – Doug Fir (2 shows)
BLITZEN TRAPPER LINKS:
Facebook/ Twitter/ Label/ Official site