Blessed Announce New Album & Release Lead Single 'Anything'

"'Circuitous'"; "Of a route or journey, longer than the most direct way," recites Blessed's singer and guitarist Drew Riekman. This sounds glib, but it's also a description of a profound and rare way of creating that makes Circuitous, like all previous Blessed releases, a singular, moving, and unsettlingly committed piece of work.

Circuitous cements and expands on Blessed's status as a band's band: a patient, eclectic outfit guided by reverence for and an intense pursuit of an internally-dictated creative agenda on musicality, songwriting, performance, and artistic growth.

Blessed has sharpened their strengths into their sophomore full-length Circuitous, bringing everchanging depth and expansion to their song craft. The result is a sweeping, hyperreal, industrial art-rock tragedy, rendered in walls of noise, controlled drums, meandering ambience, and staccato syncopation. Pulled from hours of jam material and hundreds of demos, Circuitous's eight tracks sprawl and thrash and burst and fall, sometimes for nearly eight minutes - lyrically speaking to agoraphobia, isolation, grief, the hyper-control of capital and the numbness it breeds.

Of its lead single "Anything", available today, Riekman unfolds, "The narrative that you can be anything if you work hard enough is absurd. It ignores so many facets of life, development, geography, class, on and on et al. But it pits people against each other in an effort to become "something", a "something" that is loosely defined and shaped by personality rather than a communal vision.

It creates a pedestal to put yourself or others on. You're never good enough, because there's always someone above you doing more. We're reaching for unattainable lifestyles, that we don't even need, that are hyper individualistic and negate the need for community. When you're looking at the environment you exist in socially as a pyramid, and there's people you want to be closer to "at the top", that's a net negative for anyone. The more accessible we are, and on the level with each other we are in our immediate places, the more we gain."

Blessed's longtime collaborator, digital artist Nathan Donovan, paired up with Jacob Dutton, to art direct and design all original art and videos for the record, centering on a nameless, childlike robot that embodies very specific, subtle and uncanny expressions. The robot appears on the record's cover and in the video for "Anything," an expansive, mechanically-precise weave of eerie vocals, chiming guitars, bass throbs, and tense percussion.

Since being established in 2015, Blessed has been on a relentless but precise creative trajectory, releasing three EPs, an LP, a 7" split, and a remix EP. Their most recent, 2021 EP, iii, earned positive acclaim from the likes of Iggy Pop, Talkhouse, Premier Guitar and Pitchfork. They've crafted a jaw-dropping live show experience built upon a unabating touring schedule, boasting over 300 shows across North America, including stops at SXSW, Treefort, and Sled Island, and on tours with Pile, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, and Preoccupations.

Blessed recorded Circuitous during winter 2020-2021 at Vancouver's Rain City Recorders with Matt Roach and Emily Ryan. The record was mixed by John Congleton (Swans, St. Vincent, Wye Oak) and mastered by Greg Obis (Alabaster Deplume, Cloud Nothings). The group experimented with two different drum setups, eventually blending the two within a single song. The record builds on Blessed's commitment to creativity, introducing more synthesizers, programming, MIDI, sequencers, and experimentation in arrangements.

Circuitous sees its release via Flemish Eye Records on October 28. To pre-order or save, go here.

Listen to the new single here:

To post a comment, you must register and login.