Near To The Wild Heart Of Life
After playing the last of their 200 shows in more than 40 countries in support of their critically acclaimed 2012 album Celebration Rock, Japandroids took a much needed break to rest and recover after their last show in November of 2013. The band would not play again for three years. This month, they made their triumphant return to the stage, playing intimate shows in Vancouver, LA, Toronto, London and NYC, in which they treated fans to their favorites from Celebration Rock and Post-Nothing, and previewed a handful of new, unreleased songs. Now, the band has announced their much anticipated third album, Near To The Wild Heart Of Life, out worldwide on Anti- this January 27, 2017. Near To The Wild Heart Of Life, was written clandestinely throughout 2014 and 2015 in Vancouver, Toronto, New Orleans, and Mexico City. It was (mostly) recorded by Jesse Gander (who had previously recorded both Post-Nothing and Celebration Rock) at Rain City Recorders in Vancouver, BC (September-November, 2015). One song, True Love And A Free Life Of Free Will, was recorded by Damian Taylor during an exploratory recording session at Golden Ratio in Montreal, QC (February, 2015). The album was mixed by Peter Katis at Tarquin Studios in Bridgeport, CT (May, 2016) and mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound in New York, NY (July, 2016). Like Post-Nothing and Celebration Rock, the album is 8 songs. This is because 8 songs is the standard template for a great rock n roll album: Raw Power by The Stooges, Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen, Marquee Moon by Television, IV by Led Zeppelin, Horses by Patti Smith, Paranoid by Black Sabbath, Remain In Light by Talking Heads, Master Of Puppets by Metallica, etc. Like Post-Nothing and Celebration Rock, the album was sequenced specifically for the LP. On Near To The Wild Heart Of Life, side A (songs 1-4) and side B (songs 5-7) each follow their own loose narrative. Taken together as one, they form an even looser narrative, with the final song on side B (song 8) acting as an epilogue.
For the most part, Near to the Wild Heart of Life sticks to the Japandroids M.O., but the end results are less enticing.
Each Japandroids full-length has felt hard-won, not inevitable. The Vancouver duo intended to posthumously self-release its 2009 debut, Post-Nothing, but some label interest and online acclaim turned the album into a commencement, not a eulogy. Touring made writing a successor difficult, so the band released a few…
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Last August, when Japandroids announced a run of shows slated for the tail end of 2016, it broke the silence on a three-year hiatus that followed a
'Near to the Wild Heart of Life' by Japandroids, album review by Eli Teed. The LP comes out on January 27th, via Anti. Japandroids, play 2/13 in Madison, WI