New Music From Howlin Rain

Posted on Jan 14, 2015
New Music From Howlin Rain

Howlin Rain‘s most recent vibrant, emotional creation embodies Ethan Miller‘s struggle of restarting after hitting rock bottom. Before Howlin Rain, Miller founded Comets on Fire & released four albums (two on Sub Pop), with band mates Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance) and Ben Flashman (Sic Alps). In 2008 the group took an indefinite hiatus, and Miller focused fully on Howlin Rain. But after three records with Howlin Rain and opening for Queens of the Stone Age, The Black Crowes, Mudhoney and Roky Erikson – he had no label, no band, and no immediate move forward. Recorded in San Francisco, in musical cohort Eric Bauer’s studio (known as “Bauer Mansion,” where Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees and Mikal Cronin have also recorded), the songs on Mansion Songs, documents Miller‘s “journey from nothingness.”

Mansion Songs is a living, breathing, and thrillingly imperfect thing. It sweats, it bleeds, its skin is rough and calloused. The album gets its organic and honest sound from Miller‘s desire to create “something that showed raw nerves in the end, something that painted the elegance of hard-won fatigue and showed off-color bruises.” The album definitely embodies the “sound of despair in various forms,” from rhythmic tunes “Wild Bush” and “Big Red Moon” to the lingering vocals found on “Restless.” With such variety of sounds, Mansion Songs reflects Miller‘s gamut of emotions. “Sometimes we regain control over ourselves and our lives by allowing our psyche to give in and accept chaos and let it blow us to the place it must for us to begin to have clear emotional sight again”.

“It sounds like some lost psychedelic folk song from Dead’s heyday or maybe a playful composite of Nick Cave and Blitzen Trapper.”
Stereogum

“…instead of putting the band behind him, Ethan Miller has pressed on with a record that ropes in a revolving cast of musicians, raising all sorts of down-home hell around Miller’s glorious creations.”
Tiny Mix Tapes

RIYL: Dr. Dog, The Growlers, Nick Cave, Vetiver, Comets on Fire, My Morning Jacket

Recommended Tracks: Track #5 “Wild Bush”, track #1 “Big Red Moon”, track #3 “Coliseum”, track #4 “The New Age”

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Going for Adds 1/19 & 1/20

FCC CAUTION: Track #2 “Meet Me in the Wheat” [says b*tch]

Label: Easy Sound Recording Company

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