I'm looking forward to this one. This band's just been getting better and better.

A leak would've been perfect here, but I'll settle for the album cover. Looking forward to this too.

How bout some more information
Furr is the fourth record by Portland sextet Blitzen Trapper and the follow-up to last year’s highly acclaimed Wild Mountain Nation. Written in the gaps of the group’s frenetic touring schedule and recorded mostly in a hoary old telegraph building close by the Willamette River, the new record refines and expands on the far-ranging yet distinctive songcraft that lies at the heart of Blitzen Trapper’s unique appeal.

Like its predecessor, Furr was made largely in the group’s studio at Sally Mack’s School of Dance, which is housed in the aforementioned telegraph building near downtown Portland. This is a small T-shaped room with high ceilings, a couch, a hot-plate, and a mixing console. During reprieves from tour, songwriter and producer Eric Earley lived furtively in the studio, crashing on the couch, but rising with the sun or staying up into the nether hours when the other bands in the building quit and went home. It was during these quiet times that the new songs took shape, with rhythm sections printed hot to four-track and then layered and embellished and deconstructed or sometimes just left the way they were.

One key to this new material was an ancient, warped piano that appeared in the hallway one day at Sally Mack’s School of Dance and which was subsequently muscled into the group’s studio. Though out of tune and missing teeth, this piano became the warhorse upon which Earley wrote and recorded much of Furr. The beast has gone away to the landfill now, but you can still hear the clacking and clattering of its rickety skeleton in songs like “Not Your Lover” and “Echo.”

Blitzen Trapper is a group of native Northwesterners, most of whom grew up in Salem, Oregon. They have lived and played together in Portland since 2000. Critics and fans have compared their music to just about everything; there have been calls to coin a new genre. After self-releasing Wild Mountain Nation in June of 2007, the group ventured beyond the West Coast for the first time to tour extensively in Europe and North America. Furr is their first Sub Pop release.

Released: 2008-09-23 (CD), 2008-09-23 (LP)

TRACKS

1. Sleepytime in the Western World
2. Gold for Bread
3. Furr
4. God & Suicide
5. Fire & Fast Bullets
6. Saturday Nite
7. Black River Killer
8. Not Your Lover
9. Love U
10. War on Machines
11. Stolen Shoes & a Rifle
12. Echo/Always On/EZ Con
13. Lady on the Water

that cover rules

can't wait

I was setting it up for someone else to do it. I treat message boards like a normal conversation. I say "Hey, have you heard about the new Blitzen Trapper album coming out?" and you guys say "Yeah, it's got..."

The cover seems perfect for a Blitzen Trapper album. The logo has a 70s/80s rock/hard rock/metal look to it, but carving it into wood gives it a more rootsy, countrified feel.

I'm very interested in hearing this and hope the band doesn't let me down.

Here's a new song:

http://prune.da-shiz.net/uploads/jackelpdw/furr.mp3

Thank you!

good news, indeed...

sweet!

Really looking forward to this one. They sounded fantastic at SXSW this year.

so i've listened to the title track about 5 times today and wow is it lovely. a little bit more reeled in and domesticated than what i'm used to from them, but man what a lovely song.

dare i say this is both the best band in the northwest and one of the best bands making music today? their songs are just unreal.

i need to hear this by the end of the day.

have you not heard the track furr yet? it's been out for a while (although i finally downloaded it today). i know you're one of the bigger BT fans on the board.

it's gorgeous, i think you'll digs it.

"yeah when i was only seventeen, i could hear the angels whispering..."

yeah, that's the only track i have from the new one... you're gonna love them live. they keep things real loose and fun.

i dont think the new one has leaked anywhere at all yet. quite excited for it i am.

they also have a bunch of cool shit up on their myspace right now which i guess is mostly either unreleased or from some of their tour only EPs

that song linked above kicks all kinds of ass

it very subtlely makes me happy

i enjoyed wild mountain nation, but havent been able to see these guys live on this last round of touring. if everything on furr is along these lines, i am waaaay excited to hear the rest of this one.

http://sPendspace.com/file/s9ayll

Oh shit awesome. Thanks dude.

Oh hells yeah, I just looked for this last night! Thanks!

just made my day... thanks.

ditto. thanks a milli.

seeing them in ~3 hours...

one song in and this this is kicking my ass. best kind of hairy hippie music.

ditto.

This... this is pretty great.

These guys fucking delivered the goods for their SubPop debut. I don't hear anything as immediate as Devil A Go-Go or Wild Mountain Nation, but a wholly consistent work. I am all about these guys, I may have to catch them again at Schubas on my birthday (Nov. 9). This album is wicked awesome!!

Here's a surprise to tide you over until the album comes out.

Ep3 (Tour ep)

This album is the real deal. Hard to see it not making my top 10 of '08 to be completely honest. I just wanna go drive around with it but the weather is so overcast today...

And I still absolutely cannot get over the title track or Black River Killer.

Holy shit this band sure grew in such a short period. This is incredible. I was feeling kind of bad for them, as Fleet Foxes had kind of stolen their spotlight but this is arguably better than Fleet Foxes... just incredible.

that link ain't workin' yo

This like this a LOT.





It worked okay for me. The link in the center of the page is kinda small and takes a few seconds to appear.

yeah i got it working, i was taking that "1" out of the address...

oh man, this is good.

that tour EP is cool too. but FURR... shit, serious American rock and roll music right there.

i guess i know what's finally gonna make me stop spinning that Royal Bangs record so much.

yeah, furr is more american than john mccain multiplied by prime rib to the power of hawaiian tropic bikini contests. furr is like that, with the manliest beard you've ever seen.

edit: that is to say, furr is making my eoy top twenty for sure, top ten quite likely. i played this album like five times today, and during dinner, when my friends were over, they were all like "wtf is this awesome stuff?" the reference points were grateful dead when they were still good, old tom petty and some of the late era post-beatles george harrison shit.

haven't heard the record yet but great set today. i chatted w/ the drummer and 2nd guitarist/harmony vocalist/red haired dude after the show for a bit, real nice and friendly. they said they played most of the album in their set. it was really pretty.

reference point for this band to me has always been the grateful dead and the band. i hear very little of the pavement sound that so many people love to tout about BT. it's there at times and i'm sure they were an influence, but the "pavementy" aspects of the best BT songs really never seem that specific to pavement i guess and could have come from any alt rock band from 1984 onwards.

thanks for that tour ep! i've been playing the hell out of those tunes on myspace as of late.

brobee OTM re: fleet foxes stealing these dudes subpop thunder. FF is fine and good, but THIS is the best band in the northwest today. i hope this record gets the equal attention and adoration i'm undoubtedly sure it deserves.

This album is really really good

that was heretix, but thanks anyways. i don't know if this is gonna get the raves that ff did, but whatever. who gives a fuck. fleet foxes makes me want to sleep and furr makes me want to open a beer at 8:28 in the morning.

Fleet Foxes is better than Furr by a good amount. Silly talk.

Finally something to challenge "In the Future" as my favorite album of 2008.

agree.






to disagree. this album's proving to have some legs. only thing i want to listen to right now.

I did not enjoy them at all live, but the song "Furr" is really fucking good. I think I'll check out the new record.

album of the year

I can't imagine this not being in my top 3 for 2008, unless some absolutely fantastic stuff has yet to be released so far this year.

Don't know if this can take over Malkmus for #1, or if anything can for that matter, but this is gonna be up there. Better with each listen.

fuck this is really REALLY good...
i liked their past albums, but this is a few notches above

the title cut reminds me of the Kinks

Yeah, I thought Wild Mountain Nation was good, but this seems to be on another level.

It's so backwoods and shaggy. I love it.

Eh not really. There's nothing backwoods about it.

Couple nice songs. Lots o' filler.

I guess we can argue connotations all day long. To me, it sounds loose and wild. I hear beards and I hear beer.

In potentially less thorny semantic territory: there are some really great melodies here. And even though there are places where they let it sprawl and all hang out, there are also some really nice, subtle musical touches. It's got a great feel to it, and I am a big fan of great feel. Of course, it's entirely subjective, so I'm sure Montana will feel free to disagree with me.