For their sixth album, Times Square Discount which came out last year, Canadian psych rock duo, Dearly Beloved, went on a different route, and contrary to the more methodical ways which they followed through the creation of 2016's Admission, the band slowed down and took everything into their own hands, laying back and making the most of the creative liberty an artist can have.
They recorded at Dave Grohl’s Studio 606, Rancho de la Luna in Joshua Tree, California, or the band's own home studio on Phoebe Street in Toronto, and the result lingers somewhere between astute hard rock 'n' roll, and the most accessible kind of desert and stoner rock one can come across.
Putting on a sharp sound which feels smoother than glam-leaning punk of Turbonegro and dirtier than the latest few albums of Queens Of the Stone Age, single LSD provides one of the most rousing moments on Dearly Beloved's latest record. The song now comes with a new video shot with footage from Dearly Beloved's 2019 European autumn tour with Sebadoh, which streams for the first time ever below.
Vocalist/bassist Rob Higgins and vocalist/percussionist Niva Chow who comprise Dearly Beloved enlisted an impressive lineup of collaborators for Times Square Discount such as Dimitri Coats of Burning Brides and OFF!, James Di Salvio of Bran Van 3000, Jordan Lawlor of M83, keyboardist Tyler Beans, drummer Aaron Morrice, and Leonard Cohen's daughter, Lorca.
Higgins call the album "a rabbit-hole record," and mentions Kubrick a few times when asked about its aim. He talks about "bingeing on Kubrick and drugs," and asks: "How do we make Kubrick an album? How do you make an album version of The Shining?"
Times Square Discount is out now through Future Shock Records.
Spotify
Band photo by Joanne Klimaszewski
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