Leather-donned San Franciscans Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, or BRMC as all the cool kids call them, are set to release their seventh studio album this year, releasing a series of album teasers for their new record on their official YouTube channel, kickstarting for 2013 what became a major trend in 2012.
As Consequence Of Sound reports, the follow-up to 2010’s Beat The Devil’s Tattoo is entitled Specter At The Feast, and set for a worldwide release on March 18th via Co-Operative Music and BRMC’s label Abstract Dragon Records. The album is thematically darker, even by the trio’s own standards, focussing on the group’s emotional recovery following the death of frontman Robert Levon Been’s father, Michael (former singer of Call).
“No one really wanted to find those words or dig in deep,” Levon Been said to Rolling Stone about the band’s new LP. “So we were faking it for a while, not really digging that deep. You have to go back again and dig a bit deeper, and it was excruciating. So how we dealt with what we were going through was to feel it all and not really water down one or the other to make something fit.”
The group also paid tribute to the bassist’s fallen father by opening a recent show with the Call’s song “Let The Day Begin,” one of a series of intimate gigs BRMC played in their hometown San Francisco and in LA, showcasing several new numbers from the forthcoming album, including “Lose Yourself,” “Lullaby,” “Funny Games” and “Rival.”“We were faking it for a while, not really digging that deep. You have to go back again and dig a bit deeper, and it was excruciating,” Robert Levon Been, BRMC
“We all wanted to cover a Call song for this record. It means a lot to us to be able to pay respect to Michael for all he’s done for us,” Been says. “I don’t think any of us actually thought ‘Let the Day Begin’ would be the one, though. It wasn’t until one day Leah [Shaprio] just started storming away on a new drumbeat, which sounded ferocious.”
“We all jumped in on bass and guitar, and literally 10 minutes later the song was wrapped. Without saying a word we all just fell into it. All the rhythms locked together. It wasn’t even a question anymore after that,” says Been.
Specter At The Feast was recorded at Dave Grohl’s studio in Los Angeles, where BRMC band members Peter Hayes and Robert Levon Been also found time to feature on Grohl’s all-star soundtrack to his forthcoming rockumentary Sound City: Real To Reel.
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Hayes and Been feature alongside the Foo Fighter on ‘Heaven and All’, the opening track to the film’s accompanying soundtrack, which is bursting with A-list names like Trent Reznor, Josh Homme, Stevie Nicks, Rick Springfield, John Fogerty, and members of Cheap Trick, Rage Against The Machine, and Nirvana.
Specter At The Feast is out March 18th via Co-Operative Music/Abstract Dragon Records, view the album artwork below:
