Tyler Daniel Bean

Tyler Daniel Bean releasing 'On Days Soon To Pass' (stream a track)

Burlington, VT’s Tyler Daniel Bean has been at it for a few years now, and he’ll release his latest album, On Days Soon To Pass, on November 18 via Skeletal Lightning / Tor Johnson (click the label links to pre-order). That’s the gorgeous album artwork above, and if you recognize that style, it’s because it was made by William Schaff, who’s designed iconic album covers for Okkervil River, Songs: Ohia, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and others. William painted the cover “with minimal outside direction, specifically from his experiences listening to the album.” It was recorded by Ryan Stack, who also did TWIABP’s debut Whenver, If Ever.

We’re premiering “Willow II” off the new album, which you may have heard a version of on Tyler’s live split with Au Revoir. Tyler calls his genre “heavy indie,” and that’s a pretty good description for this song. It’s got some melancholic violin by Shannon Stott-Rigsbee of The Coydogs, some gorgeous backing vocals by Jessica Lynne McDermott of The New & Very Welcome, and it starts out sounding a bit like the punk-rooted, alt-country-ish indie rock of the late ’90s and early ’00s (that William Schaff artwork suits it well). Towards the end of the song though, it transitions into the kind of climactic post-rock that bands like Caspian and This Will Destroy You do so well, with Tyler and Jessica’s voices sounding more and more desperate. Listen:

Tyler’s only upcoming show at the moment is in his home state on September 20 at Winooski, VT’s Monkey House with Signals Midwest and Choke Up.