Tera Melos announce their forthcoming third album today and share the first track via NPR. Hear and share "Don't Say I Know" HERE. (Direct YouTube HERE.)
Tera Melos also announce an extensive North American headlining tour with Speedy Ortiz supporting. Please see current dates below.
Trash Generator, the trio's third full length, is an astonishing blast of confidence and rejuvenation. It sounds as if the 4-year downtime since their last album has recharged the band with an entirely new sense of purpose. The performances are brilliant and sharp, the songs concise yet intricately detailed, and the album production deftly captures the band's strength as a live unit. Their dalliances with mellower psychedelic phrases on their previous two albums, X'ed Out (2013) and Patagonian Rats (2010) are significantly trimmed and instead utilized as colorations within a swirling maelstrom of righteous aggro punk-jazz abandon. As such, it sounds like Tera Melos has fully metabolized their pop tendencies and found a way they can coexist with the band's iconoclast origins. Tera Melos -- guitarist/vocalist Nick Reinhart, bassist Nathan Latona and drummer John Clardy -- have learned to stop worrying and just be Tera Melos.
Perhaps to understand Trash Generator, we must look at the situations leading up to it...
"We toured consistently for 19 months after X'ed Out was released in 2013," Latona explains. "We did two full US headliners, four full US support tours, a Japanese tour, a month in Europe, and a run of shows in the UK and Ireland. When we finished, we were pretty exhausted and frustrated." It had seemed that after all of that work, not much had changed for the band. Tera Melos took a short holiday break, which eventually turned into two years as each of them pursued other interests. "I found myself at ease with the idea of not worrying about ticket sales, strategic tours, units moved, likes, clicks, views, and the short-fused moodiness of living in a van with two other people," Latona says. In that downtime, Reinhart remained active in multiple endeavors: contributing guitar to Death Grips' The Powers That B and Bottomless Pit albums + the I.L.Y.'s (Zach Hill and Andy Morin's other band), Big Walnuts Yonder (with Mike Watt, Nels Cline and Greg Saunier), Goblin Cock, Portugal.the man and many others. Latona completed a college degree he'd put off for 11 years. Clardy became and integral faculty member at the School of Rock in Dallas/Ft. Worth, inspiring young musicians with his real-world approach to learning music.
For every touring band there's a subtle pressure -- from fans, industry, promoters, family -- that the band is supposed to be on a constantly rising trajectory of success. Regardless of the group's own potentially esoteric goals, if you're not reaching for the "next level" at every turn, you're supposedly not doing it right. Tera Melos thought long and hard about it, and said, "fuck it."
"Wth this record it was 100% let's not concern ourselves with what we should be doing at this point in the band's lifespan, and just fully focus on what makes us happy," Reinhart says. "Making a new record seemed like a fun act of defiance," Latona adds. "The odds are against bands like us, but despite all the negativity involved in trying to struggle and survive as an artist, we made Trash Generator because we just wanted to get together, have some fun, and make something that we think is cool."
The trio decamped to San Diego in late 2016 to record at Singing Serpent Studios with Ben Moore (Hot Snakes, Pinback). It was their first time recording in a continuous block of time, rather than the piecemeal stealth late night sessions at friends' studios of previous efforts. It gave the band a razor-sharp focus atop of their beholden-to-none attitude. "We stayed in a spare place at Rob Crow's house which had a barracks kind of feel to it," Clardy explains. "We'd come home exhausted each day and fall asleep within an hour. It was very spartan when away from the studio." That mindset clearly informs the direct, in-your-face energy of Trash Generator.
Album opener "System Preferences" starts things off with a simmering energy built upon a short 3-note bass loop and Reinhart's trademark whispersational Syd Barrett-esque vocals setting the stage for Gang Of Four style chopping guitar lines and rollicking toms. "Dyer Ln" pits a twangy guitar and a slice-n-dice rhythm section against each other with subtle sleight of hand (and foot) between Clardy and Latona. Elsewhere, "Don't Say I Know" showcases the band's brilliant synthesis of pop hooks with lightning fast shifts of rhythm, style, tone and mood - often within the same measure. The title track centers around syncopated, angular arpeggiated guitar notes building into an explosive chorus with the catchy, odd chorus refrain, "trash generator/ I'm not a bad guy." Reinhart has gained considerable notoriety in the musician's gear world in recent years from his contributions to Juan Alderete's "Pedals and Effects" blog/YouTube channel and their viral "100 Pedals" video. HIs knowledge of and skill with employing countless guitar pedals to accentuate his playing is tastefully on full display throughout the album. Latona and Clardy, not to be outdone, shine like never before as the band effortlessly slips back into their own unique and jaw-dropping musical vocabulary.
Trash Generator will be available everywhere August 25th, 2017 on LP, CD, click, like and download via Sargent House. Pre-orders for LP/CD via HelloMerch and download via iTunes.
TERA MELOS & SPEEDY ORTIZ 2017
Oct 13 Los Angeles, CA @ The Roxy
Oct 14 Sacramento, CA @ Harlow's
Oct 16 Portland, OR @ Holocene
Oct 17 Seattle, WA @ Chop Suey
Oct 19 Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
Oct 20 Denver, CO @ Globe Hall
Oct 21 Omaha, NE @ Slowdown
Oct 22 Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St Entry
Oct 24 Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon
Oct 25 St. Louis, MO @ Firebird
Oct 26 Chicago, IL @ Subterranean
Oct 27 Lakewood, OH @ Mahall's
Oct 28 Toronto, ON @ The Hard Luck
Oct 29 Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz
Oct 31 Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair
Nov 01 Hamden, CT @ The Ballroom Outer Space
Nov 02 Brooklyn, NY @ TBA
Nov 03 Philadelphia, PA @ The Foundry @ Fillmore
Nov 04 Washington, DC @ Rock & Roll Hotel
Nov 05 Carborro, NC @ Cat's Cradle
Nov 07 Orlando, FL @ Backbooth
Nov 08 Talahassee, FL @ Club Downunder (FSU)
Nov 09 Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade Purgatory
Nov 10 New Orleans, LA @ Gasa Gasa
Nov 11 Houston, TX @ Secret Group
Nov 13 Dallas, TX @ Three Links
Nov 15 Phoenix, AZ @ The Rebel Lounge
Nov 16 San Diego, CA @ The Casbah
Nov 17 Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room
Nov 18 San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill
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Artist: Tera Melos
Album: Trash Generator
Record Label: Sargent House
Release date: August 25th, 2017
01. System Preferences
02. Your Friends
03. trash Generator
04. Warpless Run
05. Dyer Ln
06. GR30A11
07. Men’s Shirt
08. Don’t Say I Know
09. A Universal Gonk
10. Like a Dewclaw
11. Drawing
12. Super FX
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