the black watch Goes For Adds
Highs and Lows, the 13th album from Los Angeles’ venerable the black watch, documents a long-running band that has been rejuvenated. Songwriter John Andrew Fredrick, who has helmed the cult favorites since 1987, didn’t intend to so quickly follow up the 2015 black watch LP Sugarplum Fairy, Sugarplum Fairy. That record was intended as his final album, to cap a career about which Trouser Press said, “Fredrick and his cohorts have become experts at straining influences – mostly ’80s British guitar pop, with a sprinkling of Dylan and Velvet Underground – through a distinctive sieve, making warm, melodic music that tweaks the mind as much as the heart.” After Sugarplum Fairy, though, Fredrick was pulled back to his musical passion project after meeting two new collaborators, producer Rob Campanella (Brian Jonestown Massacre, Beachwood Sparks, The Tyde) and lead guitarist Tyson Cornell, who joined bassist Chris Rackard and longtime drummer Rick Woodard to help Fredrick create Highs and Lows.
Highs and Lows begins with “Beautiful Sleeper,” a hauntingly poignant and personal acoustic number that serves as a segue to an album that blends fuzz with jangle to create a muscular but subtle version of dark, dreamy pop. Packed with sticky, winding musical hooks that support Frederick’s literate, lyrical, wry, and world-weary observations about life and love, it may be the best record the black watch has ever released.
“The album sounds like the holy union of Guided By Voices, the Wedding Present and any number of New Zealand pop heroes (David Kilgour, et al)… Immediate, honest and just-enough lovingly rough.”-Buzzbands
RIYL: The Wedding Present, The Catherine Wheel, Guided by Voices, Psychedelic Furs, Swervedriver, The Stone Roses
Recommended Tracks: Track 2, “Quondam Redhead,” Track 3, “Pershing/Harvard Square,” Track 7, “She’s a Mess,” Track 1, “Beautiful Sleeper”
FCC Warning: Track #4, “There’s No F**king Way”
Digital Servicing Only
Going for Adds 3/7 & 3/8
Label: Pop Culture Press
Listen to Track 3, “Pershing/Harvard Square,” and Track 7 “She’s a Mess,” below:
