THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Mere moments after the March release of Modern Love, Whitehorse’s blueprint for love in the digital age, the married duo picked up right where they left off by announcing of a second new album in the same year. Strike Me Down showcases their masterful, fantastical storytelling and melodic sensibilities, with plenty of space made for guitar shredding, epic basslines and spaced-out vocal layering. High-impact production and prismatic visuals contribute to Strike Me Down’s high-stakes mood.
The first single Am I Just Gonna Stand Here (While You Take My Girl Away) spins and swirls in equal measure, dizzy and giddy in sound while it weighs its options, or lack thereof. The song announces a sharp shift from Modern Love’s hushed, atmospheric warmth. If Modern Love was about commitment, Strike Me Down raises the stakes and explores themes of ultimatums and consequences. This second album was written in the aftershocks of the vulnerabilities large and small exposed in Modern Love’s making. On Strike Me Down, Whitehorse continue to play with fantasies and realities, theirs and ours.
Since their debut, Whitehorse have traveled from magnetic folk duo to full-blown rock band and beyond. In truth Whitehorse is never fully either one or the other, but an ever-evolving creative partnership that challenges both artists, Melissa McClelland and Luke Doucet, to explore new instrumental and lyrical terrain with each record. Steamy, swampy and squalling in equal measure, Whitehorse’s signature sound is guitar-heavy, harmony-abundant and lyrically deft.”
