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Following the tragic illness and death of their bassist Simon Wring, acclaimed British band Gallon Drunk return as a three-piece with this dynamic new album. Recorded at Clouds Hills Recordings in Hamburg during the summer of 2011, produced by Johann Scheerer (who also produced Robots In Disguise, Faust, amongst others), the band bring the considerable power of their renowned live performances to The Road Gets Darker from Here. Featuring founding frontman and former Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds member James Johnston (vocals, organ, guitar, harmonica, piano, and bass), Terry Edwards (bass, saxophone and percussion) and Ian White (drums, percussion), the trio have refocused their utterly distinctive musical vision with a collection of impassioned songs, imbued with pure mania, despair and abandonment. At the state-of-the-art analog recording studio, Scheerer recorded the band playing the songs live, direct to 2" tape. This gave a warmth, richness and depth of sound to the recording. Coupled with the band members' own recent experiences, playing and recording with the likes of Tom Waits, Lydia Lunch's Big Sexy Noise, Faust, Nick Cave, and Tindersticks, this brought an open-minded freshness to the sessions. From the insistent, slide guitar-driven "A Thousand Years," through the exhilaratingly sleazy, deranged rock n'roll of "You Made Me," the menacing melancholia of "Stuck in My Head" (featuring French singer Marion Andrau of Underground Railroad), to the desperate eruption of guitar fury of "Hanging On," this is classic, unfettered Gallon Drunk. Also including the fever-dream boogie of "The Big Breakdown," before the final haunting, enigmatic psychodrama "The Perfect Dancer" -- a miasma of hallucinatory guitars, Hammond organs and slinky voodoo drums. An utterly captivating experience.
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