Weatherbox releasing a new LP (listen to the first single, "Bring Us The Head of Weatherbox")
by Andrew Sacher
photo by Jonathan Weiner
If people are praising Evan Weiss as sort of a forerunner to the whole “Emo Revival” thing, another musician who deserves similar praise is Brian Warren. After a brief stint in pop punk band My American Heart, Brian debuted his Weatherbox project with 2007’s American Art, a pretty straightforward (but strong) emo album, not all that different from the album Evan made with The Progress a year earlier. He followed it in 2009 with The Cosmic Drama, a roughly-recorded, partially acoustic album with Pinkerton-style hastiness and utter weirdness. It’s a great record, and often an unfairly overlooked one.
Besides a few tracks recorded for EPs and splits, Weatherbox never got around to recording a proper full length followup to The Cosmic Drama, but that will finally change this year with Flies in All Directions, which comes out on May 13 via the band’s new label home Triple Crown Records (same label as Evan Weiss’ current Into It. Over It. project, and once home to Brand New). The new record sees the band taking a more overtly indie rock direction. The distorted guitar hooks of the first record are there, but this time around they’d sound better next to Modest Mouse, Built to Spill or Death Cab than Taking Back Sunday. Brian also works in the eccentricities he experimented with on The Cosmic Drama, and like on that album, the lyrics are a huge part of the appeal too.
The record’s first single, “Bring Us The Head of Weatherbox,” is as great an example of the new record’s direction as any. The song’s introduced with some lightly distorted vocals that lead into falsetto “ooh oohs,” Isaac Brock-worthy guitar bends, and a chorus of “Wake up!” which is repeated and repeated but never really sung the same way twice. Something Brian’s proved through songs like “King Friend” that he’s pretty good at.
The new single premieres in this post, and you can listen, along with the album artwork and tracklist, below. Weatherbox are also planning a summer tour which is mostly still TBA, but they’ve confirmed three west coast dates for April with DC post-punks Deleted Scenes, all of which are listed below…
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Weatherbox – “Bring Us the Head of Weatherbox”
Tracklist:
01) Pagan Baby
02) Bring Us The Head Of Weatherbox
03) The Fresh Prints Of Bill Ayers
04) Bathin’ In The Fuss
05) Radio Hive
06) The Devil And Whom?
07) Dark All Night For Us
08) Drag Out
09) The Drones
10) Ghost Malls
11) Kick-Flips
12) The Last White Lighter
13) Love Me A Good Microcosm
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Weatherbox — 2014 Tour Dates (more TBA)
4/21 – San Diego, CA – Soda Bar w/ Deleted Scenes
4/22 – Los Angeles, CA – The Church On York w/ Deleted Scenes
4/23 – San Francisco, CA – Hemlock Tavern w/ Deleted Scenes
