Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard has teamed up with singer-songwriter Mason Jennings, drummer Matt Chamberlain and keyboard player Brittany Davis to form a new project Painted Shields. The group is set to release a new self-titled studio album on November 27 via Gossard’s Loosegroove Records, which is newly revived.
The group have released a debut single for the project “I Am Your Country.” This track is a dark and visceral track, with discordant basslines, distorted vocals and haunting vocals across warlike drums. The synths add to this brooding song, giving it a dystopian feel, while the close of the track goes into quick tempos that sounds like its navigating through an apocalyptic maze.
This song was originally written about a conversation between a father and a song, before it was ultimately reworked to capture the situation currently unfolding in America. “It never totally clicked for me,” Gossard told Rolling Stone. “One day I was like, ‘What if instead of a father, I flipped it and it was more abstract and talking about the stuff happening right now in the country?'”
Jennings met Gossard through a mutual friend Daniel Field back in 2014, who suggested that the artists should collaborate with each other. They eventually began sending each other music back and forth via SoundCloud, eventually teaming up for a special 7-inch release in 2014, which held the songs “Knife Fight” and “Caught in a Mess.” As opposed to Pearl Jam’s alternative rock sound, this project will be more electronic, with elements of roots rock and contemporary folk pop.
Painted Shield track list
1. Orphan Ghost
2. Time Machine
3. Knife Fight
4. Ten Years From Now
5. On The Level
6. I Am Your Country
7. Evil Winds
8. Painted Shield
9. Raven
Photo Credit: Alyssa Fried
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