Today Americana stalwarts Blitzen Trapper announce their seventh studio album, appropriately titled VII, out today, Oct. 1. Their first release for Vagrant Records is full of the vivid folk-rock-campfire-tales frontman Eric Earley is so well known for. You can take a listen to the album track, "Ever Loved Once" at Rolling Stone.
VII opens with "Feel The Chill," a southern adventure complete with a woman in her underwear, deer hunting, and of course drowning at the local bar. Earley takes us down a crooked bend so dark and gloomy you can smell the heat and feel the humidity oppress you. "Each song starts from a small place, a headwater-like remembrance and then widens into a song. For instance, that old wreck of a shack buried in evergreen and murky darkness at the bend in the road up on Jackson Hill where we used to drink, never failed to give me a chill driving by in the old Impala for it's implacable mystery," Earley notes.
Tracks like "Thirsty Man" speak of love in a Dylan-esque fashion where Earley reveals "love like rain falls in the wasteland and slips thru the fingers - for love is a thing that cannot be held, only felt and released". "Drive On Up" is a soulful, almost bluesy rendition of small town tales of quirkiness. "It seems you're always driving on up to something." Earley amuses, "into the mountains to see a girlfriend above the reservoir where she lives in a single wide with her mom and a cougar stalks us at fifty yards through the brush, she says to bang sticks but never look it in the eye."
VII moves effortlessly from track to track, allowing Earley to paint the colorful pictures that play in our head while singing along. "...there are those songs I keep writing over and over again, "Ever Loved Once" with all its regrets and tragic lost love, "Don't be a Stranger" its hopeful cousin but they all still point to the same worn out place in the heart of old E. Earley. And hey, we all have that place, that worn spot on the heart like the chew canister circle on the back pocket of blue jeans, or that one shred in the green felt of the table where you ground the stick in too hard... May these songs minister in ways mysterious and eternal, or at least maybe make you shake a hip."
BLITZEN TRAPPER
Sat, Aug 17 Denver CO Cultivate Music Fest
Sat, Aug 24 Monterey CA First City Festival
Tue, Sep 17 Omaha NE
The Waiting Room
Wed, Sep 18 St. Louis MO Old Rock House
Thu, Sep 19 Lexington KY Cosmic Charlie's
Sat, Sep 21 Bristol VA Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion
Sun, Sep 22 Bristol VA Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion
Mon, Sep 23 Nashville TN Mercy Lounge
Wed, Sep 25 Athens GA 40 Watt Club
Thu, Sep 26 Saxapahaw NC The Haw River Ballroom
Fri, Sep 27
Washington DC Black Cat
Sat, Sep 28 Hartford CT
Arch Street Tavern
Sun, Sep 29 Boston MA Royale
Mon, Sep 30 Philadelphia PA Union Transfer
Thu, Oct 03 Brooklyn NY Music Hall of Williamsburg
Fri, Oct 04 Buffalo NY Tralf Music Hall
Sat, Oct 05 Toronto ON Lee's Palace
Mon, Oct 07
Chicago IL Lincoln Hall
Tue, Oct 08 Milwaukee WI Turner Hall
Wed, Oct 09 Minneapolis MN First Avenue
Thu, Oct 10 Fargo ND The Aquarium
Sat, Oct 12 Bozeman MT The Filling Station
Sun, Oct 13 Missoula MT Top Hat
BLITZEN TRAPPER LINKS:
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