Tag: New London Fire

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Video: New London Fire, For My Own

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For My Own is the first release from New London Fire‘s upcoming record Echoes in the Dark. Stylistically it picks up where The Dirt The Blood The Faith left off – Americana leavened with an indie rock sensibility – though tonally it’s a little darker. The first two times I listened to it I thought it was a mournful meditation on a lost relationship, the third time through I was like . . . hold on, is this a murder two-step?

Not a lot happens in the video, and I mean that literally, it’s a little under three and a half minutes of home-movie style footage of what appears to be the back of a dude sitting on a wooded hill and staring at a lake. I spent a little bit of time wondering which lake – Central Park? one in Jersey? Upstate? – before deciding that ultimately it doesn’t matter. The anonymous lake is a metaphor, for the time the lovelorn spend with their attention turned inwards. Or else it’s where the narrator dumped the body.

Well, whatever the lake means, or doesn’t, I definitely want to hear the rest of the record, and the story.

New London Fire - For My Own Official Video

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Link Session: Hurricane Sandy Relief Edition v. 2

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Revised and expanded from last week, but by no means complete.
 
Studios and Labels in Need of Assistance:

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I Will Be Your Light Inside the Dark: New London Fire, The Dirt The Blood The Faith

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Periodically people ask me what kind of music I like. My default answer is “big drums and dirty bass lines,” but now that I’ve spent some (more) time listening to current offerings in the field of country/Americana I have to add “fiddle and pedal steel.” The Dirt The Blood The Faith, the third and latest (out on vinyl as of yesterday, also available on iTunes!) record from New London Fire, combines all four of my favorite elements.

I’m especially fond of the thudding at the heart of Until the Light Goes Out On Me (turn it up, it’ll rattle your bones in the best possible way), the sweet shimmer of high silvery sound that floats through Arizona, The Jungle, and Ain’t Wagin’ War, and the low, aggressive thrum that slowly expands to a roar in title track The Dirt The Blood The Faith.

New London Fire are: David Debiak, Jon Lam, and D. James Goodwin and they are, collectively, from both Asbury Park, NJ and Woodstock, NY. (D. James Goodwin also produced the record, in his studio in Woodstock.) It’s worth noting here that New London Fire has not always been an Americana band; they actually started out closer to the Britpop end of the spectrum. I did a quick skim through their back catalog, and I can tell you that while this record is technically a whole new direction, it doesn’t sound like that much of a bizarre left turn. It’s more a possibly abrupt but still logical evolution of form.

Old NLF fans, if you’re puzzled and/or concerned, be at ease. They’ve swapped out some instruments but the carefully crafted melodies and sing-along choruses are still there. Those of you who are new to their charms and are now squinting at your screens thinking Britpop??: this record is good. It’s more western than country, it has solid pop-rock underpinnings, and you should put it on and crank it up.

As evidence, I present two videos. The first one is for their first single, The Other Side of Town:

 

And the second, made in the studio, is for Rise:

 

 

Their other big upcoming project is collaborating with New York Times reporter and novelist Bassey Etim to produce a soundtrack for Etim’s multi-platform novel The God Project which will feature hip-hop infused remixes of songs from The Dirt The Blood The Faith. They are all going to be hitting the road together this winter. I’ll keep you posted as events develop!

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