Having to put yourself through hell in order to become a better person: still unfortunately the case. At least that’s what Trails and Ways’ Keith Brower Brown discovered following his band’s debut, last year’s Pathology. With his long-term relationship at its end and two bandmates deciding to decamp following the album’s touring, Brown backpacked in California, Mexico, and Louisiana, where the solitude forced him to come face to face with his own desires for protection and comfort.
When he returned to Oakland inspired by his personal changes and sparked by a commitment to anti-capitalist ideas (those two inspirations almost certainly being linked) and environmental justice, Brown and Ian Quirk began work on Own It, their band’s second album. Those economic ideas play out across the record with great sincerity and wit—your average punk isn’t getting published in Jacobin, after all—but as they demonstrate on “Get Loud,” which we’re pleased to be premiering this morning, the combined effect of personal growth and freedom of thought is a kind of lightness that belies the heavy subject matter.
Indeed, “Get Loud” is a breezy piece of indie rock more apparently influenced by bossanova and the sheered California coast than, say, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Put a different way, in a year where the cold confines of the box feel preferable to the insanity that’s happening outside of it, “Get Loud” is a welcome reminder of just how good being free can sound. You can give it a listen, and check out Own It’s artwork and track list, below. Trails and Ways will also be on the road for much of October and November; those dates are below as well.
Own It track list
“Get Loud”
“Happiness”
“How Do I Turn”
“Coral Bleach”
“My Things”
“Pure Blues”
“Troubled”
“Ursula”
“Intuition”
“Bent Glass”
“The Answer”
Trails and Ways tour dates
10/13 – Los Angeles, CA, Los Globos
10/15 – San Diego, CA, The Hideout
10/16 – Phoenix, AZ, Rebel Lounge
10/18 – Denton, TX, Dan’s Silver Leaf
10/19 – Austin, TX, Mohawk
10/22 – Atlanta, GA, Drunken Unicorn
10/23 – Durham, NC, Duke Coffeehouse
10/24 – Washington, DC, Black Cat
10/26 – Boston, MA, Out of the Blue Too
10/27 – Philadelphia, PA, Kung Fu Necktie
10/28 – New York City, NY, Mercury Lounge
10/29 – New York City, NY, Shea Stadium
11/3 – Chicago, IL, The Hideout
11/5 – Ames, IA, Iowa State University
11/6 – Minneapolis, MN, 7th St. Entry
11/9 – Grinnell, IA, Grinnell College
11/10 – Lincoln, NE, Vega
11/11 – Fort Collins, CO, Downtown Artery
11/12 – Denver, CO, Hi-Dive
11/13 – Salt Lake City, UT, Kilby Court
11/18 – Oakland, CA, The Uptown
12/1 – Portland, OR, Bunk Bar
12/3 – Seattle, WA, Barboza
Own It is out October 7.
