The 21st-century South isn’t really what you’d expect. Sure, like everywhere, there are racial tensions. Sure, there’s that wandering religiosity, the soulless Christ-haunting best articulated by Flannery O’Connor. There’s the junk culture captured so eloquently by William Eggleston. But there’s something else, too, a new thing that’s come in the wake of all of those other things, a weird dedication to otherness that doesn’t scream “KEEP [OUR TOWN] WEIRD” in the name of economic development so much as it shrugs its shoulders at the many incongruences of Southern life.
\\GT//—the Birmingham, Alabama, trio whose acronym stands alternately for Green Teeth, Get Tryin’, Ghost Traveler, or nothing at all—fight from the dregs of this world. You can see it in the video for “Rails,” which we’re proud to premiere today. Skateboarders carve up downtown Birmingham, train cars get tagged, Black and Milds get smoked. Meanwhile, the band storm through the track, guitars as gray as the sky over Iron City, drums chugging like an outbound Southern-Pacific. Imagine the impenetrable wall of No Age scarred by the vocals from any hardworking New Orleans metal band.
“Rails” is the first single released from Beats Misplaced, the group’s debut full-length. The album’s track list and art are below, as well as a handful of Southern dates.
Beats Misplaced track list
“Growing Together”
“Beats Misplaced”
“Rails”
“Life Is…”
“Lake Arthur Sunrise”
“Something’s Wrong With My Mind”
“Heavy Dreams”
“Real Good Sex”
\\GT// tour dates
October
2 — Nashville, TN — TBD
3 — Lexington, KY — Best Friend Bar w/Wray
4 — Carbondale, IL — The Skihaus w/ Baak Gwai
20 — Oxford, MS — Larry’s w/ Lee Bains
21 — Little Rock, AR — The White Water Tavern w/ Lee Bains
26 — Baton Rouge, LA — Chelsea’s Cafe w/ Lee Bains
27 — New Orleans, LA — Siberia w/ Lee Bains
November
6 — Hattiesburg, MS — Thirsty Hippo
8 — Birmingham, AL — Yellowhammer Fair
Beats Misplaced is out 10/16 on Communicating Vessels.
