Aqueduct’s Wild Knights Goes for Adds

Posted on Jul 20, 2015
Aqueduct’s Wild Knights Goes for Adds

Wild Knights marks the long-awaited return of Aqueduct, coming eight years after a run with Barsuk in the mid-aughts that led to performances with the Flaming Lips, the Apples in Stereo, and Modest Mouse and at festivals including Lollapalooza and Sasquatch. Since 2007’s Or Give Me Death, bedroom-pop mastermind David Terry has embarked on an emotional journey. Wild Knights is his sonic diary – the story of an artist succumbing to his own stress, fractured by self-isolation and mental anguish as he battles his own wild knights on his way to emerging with a stronger and more dynamic voice.

The anxiety of the journey that Wild Knights encapsulates is palpable from the rapid heartbeat bass and ominous synthesizer of opener “The Petrified Forest,” in which Terry sings, “I’m gonna run through the jungle with my head in a bag.” Terry warns on “Loose Molars” that “it would take a miracle for me to not let you down,” but Aqueduct’s stunning return to form on this LP is no letdown for anyone with a taste for thoughtful, catchy bedroom-pop. The album ends with an invitation: “Wrestle your demons, let’s waste a whole afternoon.” It’s seldom that demon-wrestling sounds as good as it does on Wild Knights.

“The songs are great and the record is magnetic – hooks inside hooks inside hooks in ear-sticky concentric circles, yielding an embarrassment of melody, vocal, and instrumental.” – City Arts

“Direct yet subtly complex.” – PopMatters

RIYL: Brian Wilson, Beck, Miniature Tigers, Generationals, Built to Spill, Apples in Stereo, Hot Chip, Flaming Lips

Recommended Tracks: Track #2 “Simpleanimal,” track #1 “The Petrified Forest,” track #4 “Paranoid Much,” track #5 “Falling Down,” track #7 “Street Fighter”

Going for Adds 7/20 & 7/21

FCC CLEAN

Label: Aqueduct Music

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