Gatefold black vinyl! Vinyl includes a digital download code!

 

Most of us know Brian Fallon as the frontman for THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM, an act who started out in Jersey basements and slowly built their way up to headlining New York's Radio City Music Hall. Despite the success Fallon has had with his main band he's always loved decidedly less rocking acts such as the Afghan Whigs and Tom Waits. THE HORRIBLE CROWES - his new side-project alongside longtime friend Ian Perkins - is his lounge-friendly tip of the hat to the acts who have shaped another side of his musical vision. The idea for THE HORRIBLE CROWES started at the end of last year and was formed out of the bond that Fallon and Perkins developed through their mutual love of music. "The two of us had this ritual where we'd go into the back of the bus at the end of the show and just start showing each other records," Fallon explains, adding that PJ Harvey, Afghan Whigs and Joan As Police Woman were some of the acts that they exposed each other to during these sessions. "I've always wanted to experiment with the darker side of soul music and one day we were just like, et's write some songs and see what they sound like' and it turned out that it sounded great." The band headed into the studio earlier this year to put these songs to tape with the help Ted Hutt (THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM, CHUCK RAGAN, LUCERO)-and although the band is technically a two-piece, they also enlisted Steve Sidelnyk (drums and percussion), the Parkington Sisters (strings and accordion), Ted Hutt (guitars), Adele Jensen (trumpet) and The Gaslight Anthem's other members to add more texture to the sound of the album. "What I'm doing here is so far removed from what the stuff we do in THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM," Fallon explains. "The one thing I wanted to stay away from here was doing an acoustic folk record or something that sounded like my other band. This is a completely different beast and it's just another side of the music that's shaped my identity." "Elsie" is also the most personal release of Fallon's career and while THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM's music is loaded with characters and iconography, this album sees Fallon stripping back the metaphors to put it all on the line. "There's only one character here and it's about me and three or four relationships that I've had throughout my life," Fallon explains. "It's really a trip through a breakdown and it catalogs this dissent into madness and finally redemption." While drug addictions, ex-girlfriends and religion all creep their way into these songs, "Elsie" isn't a linear album as much as it is a catalog of experiences that are conveyed in a way that was equally as cathartic for Fallon to create as it will inevitably be for his listeners to hear. 

 

TRACKLISTING:  01. LAST RITES 02. SUGAR 03. BEHOLD THE HURRICANE 04. I WITNESSED A CRIME 05. GO TELL EVERYBODY 06. CHERRY BLOSSOMS 07. LADYKILLER 08. CRUSH 09. MARY ANN 10. BLACK BETTY & THE MOON 11. BLOOD LOSS 12. I BELIEVE JESUS BROUGHT US TOGETHER