Death Song is the first full-length release in four years from The Black Angels – Austin’s five-
piece psych rock masters – and their debut for Partisan Records.
Written and recorded in large part during the recent election cycle, the music on Death
Song serves as part protest, part emotional catharsis in a climate dominated by division, anxiety
and unease. “Currency,” a strong contender for the heaviest song the band has ever put to wax,
meditates on the governing role the monetary system plays in our lives, while slow-building
psychedelic earworm “Half Believing” questions the nature and confusing realities of devotion.
Recorded between Seattle and Austin, Death Song features production from Phil Ek (Father
John Misty, Fleet Foxes, The Shins). The 11-track collection offers a sharply honed elaboration
on their signature sound - menacing fuzz guitar and cutting wordplay, steeped in a murky
hallucinatory dream.
The band will tour extensively behind Death Song, including a headline set at one of the first-
ever shows at new NYC venue Brooklyn Steel on May 2nd. Full itinerary below for “The Death
March Tour”, which begins in Nashville. The band will be supported by A Place to Bury
Strangers.
Since forming in Austin in 2004, The Black Angels have become standard-bearers for modern
psych-rock, and the New York Times has said they “play psychedelic rock as if the 1960s never
ended, and they are absolute masters of it”. The band has toured with Queens of the Stone Age,
Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Black Keys + more, and played festivals such as Glastonbury,
Fuji Rock, Primavera, Harvest Fest, Coachella and Bonnaroo. Two of the band members co-
founded Levitation Festival (formerly Austin Psych Fest) in 2008, which has since grown into one
of the best-reviewed and expertly-curated festivals in the country (returning in 2018).