MDT–057 | March 11, 2022
Brad Armstrong was born in Birmingham, AL in the early 1970s. He was a product of hair metal. Later, there was Bob Dylan and the Pixies and all that, but the first things were Motley Crue Shout at the Devil and Van Halen s/t and Kiss Alive II and The Cult Electric. He is not ashamed of this.
Fast forward a few decades, an unimaginable amount of domestic beer and roofing nails, and a never-ending global pandemic, Armstrong’s newest record, Heart Like a Sigil, is out Friday, March 11th, 2022. The album was recorded by the former Syracuse University literature teacher in his home studio tucked away in Red Hook, NY during the early COVID days, and feature guest vocals by Maria Taylor on 10 of 12 tracks. On Armstrong’s 3rd solo release, the indie acoustic-macabre-southern rock songs are matched with the wit, poeticism, and southern drawl of Tom Waits meeting Jason Isbell, finding Armstrong “in a bleak landscape where few other Southern rock bands will even set foot,” as Paste once put it.
“I don’t think there is anybody writing songs today that Brad’s lyrics wouldn’t stand up against. He’s as good as any of the very best songwriters doing it. For me, what makes his lyrics unique is how smart and dimensional they are, but accessible at the same time. That’s truly difficult to do. He was a poet before he was a musician and that comes across in his songs,” said Taylor about Armstrong.
During his Birmingham, AL days, Armstrong had a band called 13ghosts that recorded six albums between 2000 and 2011, while also playing guitar in Dexateens, a legendary (or infamous) underground rock and roll institution of the Southeast. Armstrong moved to upstate New York in 2014 and released his first solo record Empire, featuring the song “Brothers” which was later featured in Netflix’s “Kingdom” starring Nick Jonas. In the beginning of COVID times, which are not over, Armstrong wrote, recorded and self-produced his newest record Heart Like a Sigil. “I was convinced I was making the last record that I would ever make before COVID ended society. In fact, you should disregard everything else I’ve made in my entire career and just listen to this only,” Armstrong says (half) jokingly.
Armstrong also recently produced, performed on, and mixed three singles from Maria Taylor in 2021 as well as Azure Ray’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” released in December 2021.
Standard Vinyl:
- Black lathe-cut vinyl LP
TRACKLIST:
- The Witch (Part 1)
- The Witch (Part 2)
- Take Me Down to Carolina
- Celluloid
- Red Nashville Skyline
- Nail in the Pine
- So Long, Goodbye
- Fading Out
- Don’t Wait For Me
- Trailer Park
- Reels Out
- Everyone Lost