New Threats from the Soul is a masterclass in reducing the sublime to the prosaic, immensity to infinitesimally, and vice versa (the trick can only work both ways). Everything in our universe is essentially flotsam or jetsam, rubbish heaps of fragments and shards. We, especially, are jerry-rigs of bubblegum and driftwood, inconsistencies and incoherencies, dead dreams and necrophagous hopes. The record functions in parallel with Kafka’s winking dictum that there is an infinite amount of hope in the universe, just not for us. New Threats suggests that maybe, just maybe, something like redemption is possible, but only once we’re entirely emptied out and hawked in toto down at Walden Pawn.
Next month, the Roadhouse Band will play a handful of dates in the Midwest and South, with a robust UK and EU tour to follow. Today’s newly announced dates will bring the band to additional cities in the South and Midwest, as well as cities on the West Coast. A full list of dates is available below.
“New Threats from the Soul [is] a beautiful and wildly smart record about making do in an upside-down world.” — Amanda Petsurich, The New Yorker
“If you don’t know it yet, it’s my privilege to tell you that Ryan Davis is one of the greatest songwriters of his generation.” — Nathan Salsberg
The second solo record by Mike Polizze of Philadelphia psych-squallers Purling Hiss and Birds of Maya, a rainier and more pensive affair than its predecessor—despite its playful humor and plentiful hooks—affirms his status as a consummate (and now not-so-secret) craftsman of instantly memorable bucolic odes of languid beauty, deepening his fingerstyle acoustic guitar magic and finally manifesting the title of the classic Hiss anthem “Run from the City.”
He’s uncovered a rich seam of songwriting, classic-sounding yet modern, unquestionably nostalgic in temperament but undeniably vital … Even when he’s at his most melancholy and hangdog, the songs themselves gleam like diamonds. – Uncut
The sound of the record approaches bliss: the sonic equivalent of a beer on the beach at sunset. It flows like a well-conceived song cycle and moves gracefully from one thought to the next. – Pitchfork
Exquisitely beautiful … It has the wondrous, enveloping quality of a daydream. – American Songwriter
I love this music so much … So many of these songs give me chills. – Kurt Vile