i haven’t heard of the Baptist Generals until yesterday. they released two records more than ten years ago. I have no idea what happened in the 10 years since then, but Sub Pop announced a new record in Mai. if you order directly from their site, you’ll get the obligatory looser edition and a special 7″ flexi, until they run out.
by now only one song is released, but i expect a really nice americana indie record above average.
from Sub Pop:
On The Baptist Generalsâ sophomore album, the word âheartâ repeats eight*** times. The Denton, TX band, known for its haunting, claustrophobic take on drunken folk, needed ten full years to bare its heartsâone of which is in the album title, Jackleg Devotional to the Heart, a name that songwriter Chris Flemmons conjured shortly after he recorded, and then trashed, the albumâs first attempt in 2005.
Flemmons goes so far as to call this his âlove album,â and itâs an apt descriptionâthough love through The Baptist Generalsâ eyes is plenty complicated. Jacklegâs hearts donât resemble valentines. No smooth curls into a final point. The bandâs vibraphones, guitarrons and ambient feedback combine like a mess of ventricles, aortas and veinsânot to mention, from the sound of it, all of the blood spilled while Jackleg lurched for years toward an eventual finish line.
Call it a love record, then. Itâs the kind of love Flemmons had to figure out in the ten years since The Baptist Generalsâ critically-acclaimed 2003 full-length debut No Silver/No Gold, a period in which he admits heâs fallen in love with a wild spectrum of musicâthe Ethiopiques series, saxophonist Archie Shepp, film scorer Meredith Willson, and plenty more. That wide spectrum only befits Jacklegâs repeated need to buck genre; in fact, the 2005 version of the album hit the trash heap because âit sounded like any other indie rock-type band,â Flemmons admits. Co-produced by Stuart Sikes (Loretta Lynn, Cat Power, The Walkmen, Modest Mouse, The White Stripes) and the bandâs Jason Reimer, Jackleg Devotional to the Heart sounds like exactly no one else.
The Details
If you pre-order Jackleg Devotional to the Heart on CD or LP, youâll receive a limited-edition flexi 7" single featuring âFly Candy Harvestâ, a song non-album track currently unavailable elsewhere. Also, if you pre-order the record on LP, youâll receive the limited, colored-vinyl Loser Edition of the record. And such is the nature of limited things, these are both a while-supplies-last type of thing.
Price $16
- Buying!
- Maybe Buy
- Not My Style
- Too Expensive