Spoiler alert! The new Midlake record is not from the band that you grew to love with The Trials Of Van Occupanther. With each successive album, the members of Midlake transformed, foregrounding a different favorite section of their record collections. Now comes Antiphon (ATO), which announces itself with an opening title track that rocks harder and more insistently than anything in the group’s prior catalog. Midlake again sounds like a new band. And, this time it is: It’s Midlake’s first since the departure of principal singer/songwriter Tim Smith, its first with guitarist Eric Pulido stepping into those lead roles, its first with former touring members Jesse Chandler (keyboards, flute) and Joey McClellan (guitars) officially joining drummer Mackenzie Smith, multi-instrumentalist Paul Alexander and guitarist Eric Nichelson. Chandler and Nichelson will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Midlake feature.
Chandler: These days, I mainly listen to podcasts while running, and my favorite podcast is called The Truth. It’s produced by Jonathan Mitchell, who has worked on a lot of other great podcasts and NPR shows like Studio 360, This American Life, Radiolab and Snap Judgment. But unlike those shows, The Truth is all work of fiction. Their tagline is “Movies For Your Ears,” which is very apt, because it has all the production values of a short film, but all the visual imagery left to your imagination, which I love. Some of the episodes are funny, some are serious, some even scary. But the largely improvised acting, as well as the writing, is absolutely impeccable. Each episode is a gem, and I always look forward with great anticipation to the next episode, and the next one, and the next.
Video after the jump.
