This week, Florida rock band Surfer Blood announced they will be releasing a new album, “1000 Palms”, on May 12th, 2015.
“1000 Palms” is the band’s third full-length album. Additionally, the new album is significant, because it is the band’s release on their acclaimed indie imprint, thereby marking a return to Surfer Blood’s Do-It-Yourself mentality. After leaving the big time studio and major label influences behind, the band decided to head back home to self-record and self-produce their third album. The resulting album is compelling, and unlike anything in their catalog to date, according to a press release.
On New Years Eve 2013, Surfer Blood rang in the New Year with a concert in Portland, Oregon. On New Years Day – January 1st, 2014 – the band came to a decision, they were frustrated from previous sessions with their label, Warner Brothers, and wanted to work without having “middlemen scrutinizing every bar of previous LP Pythons,” according to a press release. So, they decided to return to the method of their roots: self-recording. Until February 2014, the band stayed in Portland, having leased a practice space to hash out old and new ideas, and by the time their lease came to an end, Surfer Blood had recorded demos for most of the tracks that now feature on their third album.
The band’s actual self-recording process happened in various spaces, and it wasn’t always glamorous. For instance, the drum parts were tracked in an attic studio above a doctor’s office. Of the work, Surfer Blood frontman John Paul Pitts said, in a press release, “fortunately none of us are strangers to DIY recording, so it was a challenge well-suited to our band”.
Surfer Blood also has a lot of friends and family to thank for coming to their aid during the making of 1000 Palms. The remaining instrument sessions taking place at the home of drummer Tyler Schwartz’s parents while they were on holiday. And, after a few days of very little sleep, pooling resources, and calling in favors from other musicians, the band came up for air with the collection of songs that made the final cut for this new album.
Take a look at the cover art and tracklisting, below.
1000 Palms Tracklisting
01. Grand Inquisitor
02. Island
03. I Can’t Explain
04. Feast/Famine
05. Point of No Return
06. Sabre-Tooth and Bone
07. Covered Wagons
08. Dorian
09. Into Catacombs
10. Other Desert Cities
11. NW Passage
After looking all of that over, you’re probably wondering what this new record is going to sound like. Well, much to the delight of their fans, Surfer Blood released a preview of the album’s opening track, Grand Inquisitor. And, they released another track, called “Dorian”, this week. Listen to both, below.
In a press release, Surfer Blood frontman Pitts described Dorian as the album’s central point.
“This song has everything from classic 80’s synth patches to fucked-up vocoder sound collages, embracing a series of left-turns that make it one of the most unique songs in our catalogue,” he said. “It makes use of almost every sonic element we had available, and embraces the anything goes spirit this record represents.”
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