US / THEM: Chicago "sultry dirge" duo Redgrave announce new EP, SXSW and local shows

Click image above to watch video

"A scorching new band... they play howling hard rock with undercurrents of doom and blues." -- Chicago Reader

"Sultry dirges" -- Time Out Chicago

"This Chicago duo sounds like they're preying on you, with their slow, deliberately plodding, simmering, stalking kind of stomp, with spare drum parts by Stephen Howard (Ambulette, Pinebender) that are nonetheless proto-metal mean, and a guitar from singer Angie Mead that spits, burps, and subverts the blues like The Move did on "Brontosaurus" nicking the nascent Led Zeppelin, while she bellows like a Robert Plant gone girl for good like My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden." -- The Big Takeover

Chicago "sultry dirge" duo Redgrave announce the forthcoming release of their 5-song debut in June. In anticipation of this release, the band plays a series of shows this month, including the official Lovitt Records SXSW showcase. Please see complete dates below.

Check out songs from Redgrave's recently released 7" EP, "Mantis" HERE and "Gone To Wither" HERE. Watch a live in-studio performance video HERE shot at the band's first ever live show.

Vocalist/guitarist Angie Mead and drummer Stephen Howard generate a massive sound thanks to Mead's powerful, wailing voice and sludgy open tunings backed by Howard's refined rhythmic stomp. Redgrave's songs have the sort of smoldering intensity shared by PJ Harvey and Led Zeppelin alike that is hard to categorize, but immediately easy to feel. The duo's forthcoming EP, National Act was recorded by revered engineer Greg Norman (Russian Circles, Pelican) and will be available in June via Lovitt Records.

Mead started writing and recording Redgrave songs in marathon stretches beginning August 2010 from her home in Chicago after furniture was moved into storage and replaced with recording equipment, drums and guitars. She sent these demos to Chicago musician Stephen Howard, whose work she'd admired as guitarist and drummer in Pinebender. A working musician since the age of 13, Howard had grown up playing local Chicago blues clubs; his teachers included Willie Smith, John Primer and Eddie Clearwater, his classrooms in music included stages across the U.S., Europe and Africa. Mead's style has always been playing a right-handed guitar upside down -- a backwards model mimicking Albert King that roughens up the playing. But through playing with Howard, she discovered a way of singing that made her voice crest above his gale-storm drumming. They've been playing together as Redgrave since January 2011.

Tim Rutili of Califone/Red Red Meat fame lends his guitar prowess to the track "Gone To Wither" on the Redgrave debut 7" with art design by David Yow of The Jesus Lizard, produced by Stephen Howard, recorded and mixed by Greg Norman at his studio in Chicago. Lovitt will issue National Act on 12" vinyl and download on June 12th, 2012.

REDGRAVE LIVE:

03/09 Champaign, IL @ Cowboy Monkey

03/10 Chicago, IL @ The Hideout (SXSW sendoff party)

03/15 Austin, TX @ Club 1808 - Lovitt Records/Slip Productions/Artists Growth Day Party