howling bells announce new album

Australian rockers Howling Bells release their third album, The Loudest Engine, on September 12 through Cooking Vinyl. Recorded at Battle Born studios in Las Vegas with The Killers’ Mark Stoermer producing, the album is said to “forge a sonic union with Nevada’s expansive surroundings and Las Vegas’s street-soiled vibe.”

Whittled down from thirty demos to twelve full-fleshed out songs, much of the album was written on the road – a fact often reflected in the lyrics. Take the album’s title track for instance: “We wrote this song about the soul of the tour bus,” says frontwoman Juanita Stein. “A wise ol’ beast, she sees all, hears all, knows a million and one stories. And when you’re spending as much time as we do in a vehicle, lying there at night contemplating a million different things, you develop a relationship with the space. The lyrics came about as a poem one night when I couldn’t sleep, the sound of the engine kept me awake: ‘I spend my days on the loudest engine of all, a think tank, your road priest, she’s everyone’s favourite whore’.”

Have a listen:

“There’s a singular sound which is more folk and rock than our last two albums, but it’s interpreted in a modern sense,” she continues. “It wasn’t a conscious effort to make a ’70s tinged record. It was a very natural progression [...] The album shows that we’re 21st century kids making a modern psychedelic record. [It] is our grown up record. The first was about that great initial leap, the second was us exploring different waters. This one is us, all having met at one place, at one time. I think this record will change people’s perspectives of the band.”

Howling Bells return to the UK for six shows around the time of release. Catch them at the following venues:

14.09.11 Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
15.09.11 Electric Ballroom, London
16.09.11 Plug, Sheffield
18.09.11 Cockpit, Leeds
19.09.11 Oran Mor, Glasgow
20.09.11 Academy 3, Manchester

Written by: Alan Pedder

Tags: howling bells, the loudest engine

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