February 19 street date. The cover art for "iii", the upcoming EP from Canadian art-rock band Blessed, depicts a wall of wooden blocks, all different shapes, jumbled messily and precariously high against a softly-coloured background. It's an image that captures Blessed at their most essential: experimental, asymmetrical, and interdependent, all the more remarkable for their marriage of those three qualities. The EP's four tracks expand on Blessed's already-idiosyncratic vision: cavernous post-punk electronics and measured drum work pave under guitarwork that trips and sways from chiming and sunny, to serrated and snarling, to frigid and stiff. Vocalist Drew Riekman's lithe tenor flickers in and out across tracks, an extra texture rather than a spotlit focus. Rather than aim for one uniform mix, the band pursued four separate ones: Corin Roddick (Purity Ring), John McEntire (Tortoise), Graham Walsh (Holy Fuck), and Riekman. The result is four tracks with distinctly different palettes and trajectories.
February 19 street date. The cover art for "iii", the upcoming EP from Canadian art-rock band Blessed, depicts a wall of wooden blocks, all different shapes, jumbled messily and precariously high against a softly-coloured background. It's an image that captures Blessed at their most essential: experimental, asymmetrical, and interdependent, all the more remarkable for their marriage of those three qualities. The EP's four tracks expand on Blessed's already-idiosyncratic vision: cavernous post-punk electronics and measured drum work pave under guitarwork that trips and sways from chiming and sunny, to serrated and snarling, to frigid and stiff. Vocalist Drew Riekman's lithe tenor flickers in and out across tracks, an extra texture rather than a spotlit focus. Rather than aim for one uniform mix, the band pursued four separate ones: Corin Roddick (Purity Ring), John McEntire (Tortoise), Graham Walsh (Holy Fuck), and Riekman. The result is four tracks with distinctly different palettes and trajectories.
October 28 street date. Blessed's sophomore full-length, "Circuitous", cements and expands on their status as a band's band: a patient, eclectic career outfit guided by the intense pursuit of an internally-dictated creative agenda. The group has sharpened their strengths, bringing an ever-growing depth of songwriting and artistic evolution to their craft. Composed from hours of jam material and hundreds of demos, "Circuitous" comprises eight tracks that sprawl and thrash and burst and fall. The record finds the band digging deeper into their vast collective catalog of influences, taking notes from groups as diverse as Mount Kimbie, Shabazz Palaces, Liquid Liquid, and Unwound. The result is a sweeping, hyperreal, industrial art-rock tragedy, rendered in walls of noise, controlled drums, meandering ambience, and staccato syncopation, while touching on topics like agoraphobia, isolation, grief, the hyper-control of capital and the numbness it breeds. Circuitous was mixed by John Congleton (Swans, St. Vincent, Wye Oak) and mastered by Greg Obis (Alabaster Deplume, Cloud Nothings, Stuck).
October 28 street date. Blessed's sophomore full-length, "Circuitous", cements and expands on their status as a band's band: a patient, eclectic career outfit guided by the intense pursuit of an internally-dictated creative agenda. The group has sharpened their strengths, bringing an ever-growing depth of songwriting and artistic evolution to their craft. Composed from hours of jam material and hundreds of demos, "Circuitous" comprises eight tracks that sprawl and thrash and burst and fall. The record finds the band digging deeper into their vast collective catalog of influences, taking notes from groups as diverse as Mount Kimbie, Shabazz Palaces, Liquid Liquid, and Unwound. The result is a sweeping, hyperreal, industrial art-rock tragedy, rendered in walls of noise, controlled drums, meandering ambience, and staccato syncopation, while touching on topics like agoraphobia, isolation, grief, the hyper-control of capital and the numbness it breeds. Circuitous was mixed by John Congleton (Swans, St. Vincent, Wye Oak) and mastered by Greg Obis (Alabaster Deplume, Cloud Nothings, Stuck).
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