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The Sadies
Yep Roc Records is proud to release
New Seasons, the first studio album from The Sadies since their acclaimed 2005 release
Favourite Colours. Recorded and co-produced with former Jayhawk Gary Louris, the Toronto foursome have managed to combine '60s country rock and psychedelia, C&W, surf, punk and cosmic American music and transform it into their own unique sound. The Sadies may sound like a lot of things, but no one quite sounds like the Sadies or seems to do it quite so effortlessly.
While it's been three years since their last studio album, the Sadies have been far from idle. In 2006 they released In Concert: Volume One, a live double disc featuring family and longtime friends such as Neko Case and Kelly Hogan, Garth Hudson, Blue Rodeo, Gary Louris, Heavy Trash (Jon Spencer & Matt Verta-Ray), and the Good Brothers. The album captures the reckless energy, musicianship and love of collaboration that's typified the Sadies' nearly decade-long career and documents a band at the height of their performance power.
New Seasons was recorded in Canada and abroad around the band's heavy touring schedule and introduces 13 new tracks (2 co-written with longtime friend Rick White of Elevator and Eric's Trip) into the Sadies' canon. Longtime fans will notice fewer instrumental numbers, with a greater emphasis on the brotherly harmonies of frontmen Dallas and Travis Good, abetted by the organic, intuitive playing of drummer Mike Belitsky and upright bassist Sean Dean. Louris contributes backing vocals; Canadian country Hall of Fame legends The Good Brothers (Travis and Dallas' father and uncles) lay down autoharp, banjo and guitar; mom Margaret Good contributes backing vocals; and Howe Gelb (Giant Sand) adds piano to a track. But the contributions are subtle; this is arguably the purest Sadies' album to date - a distillation of all the albums they grew up listening to into something alchemically different and totally their own.
Like another acclaimed group of Canadians, The Band, The Sadies have become as renowned for their collaborations as for their own releases: they're the live band on Neko Case's
The Tigers Have Spoken and co-wrote songs with Case for her last album
Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, and they've recorded albums with The Mekons' Jon Langford (
The Mayor of the Moon), cult soul legend Andre Williams (
Red Dirt) and others. They've also got their trippy side project, The Unintended, featuring Rick White and Blue Rodeo's Greg Keelor.
The Sadies are at home on any stage they're on, with a typical show lasting 35 to 40 songs, give or take five or ten. The band's almost careless stage presence -- with the Good brothers looming in their tailored, embroidered suits -- and reckless punk energy make the songs fly by. Or maybe it's the way they can stop and start on a dime, going from a cover of Johnny Paycheck's "I've Got Someone to Kill" (which they recorded with R&B legend Andre Williams) to a stunning original rich with guitar textures and gorgeous vocal harmonies, all delivered with the casual ease of lighting another cigarette. With
New Seasons, the Sadies have delivered an album where the songs and the vocal performances come first. If you've ever seen the Sadies, you already know they can all play their asses off anyway...
