Empty Country – Empty Country II – Released 03/11/23

Description

As the front person of celebrated indie band Cymbals Eat Guitars, guitarist and singer Joseph DAgostino spent over a decade setting autobiographical, emotionally vivid lyrics against a backdrop of soaring and compositionally ambitious rock. After four critically acclaimed LPs that solidified DAgostinos reputation as a gifted songwriter, he chose to break from his long-term band and debut a new project: Empty Country. On 2020s self-titled debut, DAgostinos storytelling lens shifted away from personal narrative and toward fiction; psychopaths, apparitions and deplorables populated a bleak and uncanny parallel version of American dystopia. Empty Country II, the projects second full-length, is a thrilling expansion of that world. DAgostino pushed himself to new places as a songwriter, crafting a collection of short stories set to music that grapple with the biggest questions now hanging over America – gun violence, the addiction epidemic, and generational hopelessness among them. In 2020, hed moved from Philadelphia to small-town New England to be closer to family, and his new locale, coupled with the dread of lockdown, inspired him to return to the haunted world from the first LP. Its pretty jarring to leave a citywhere you can safely assume youre aligned with your neighbors on many political and social issues – for somewhere more rural and conservative, says DAgostino, noting the Trump flags and Blue Lives Matter hood wraps that dot his new dirt road residence. Across the new albums nine tracks, DAgostino introduces us to a bevy of characters: three generations of West Virginia clairvoyants, crushed by the weight of their secret knowledge; a group of drag queens and misfits in early 80s New York City; a pill mill doctors daughter who dabbles in necromancy; a convicted killer; a bullied kid injured and alone in the forest as night falls. Through the stories of these characters, Empty Country II delivers an engaging and deeply moving rumination on time, family, and the disintegration of America. For fans of Silver Jews, Pixies, Husker Du, Wilco, Pavement, Superchunk, Modest Mouse.