THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “How would you define The Wild Feathers? Some may immediately check a box for Americana — and they wouldn’t be wrong. Others may lean on a version of rock: Country-rock, folk-rock, heartland rock. They’d all be right, too. Blues? A Southern flare? Occasional punk attitude? It’s all in there. Now, it’s time to hop on the bus and sing along.
The longtime Nashville band returns this year with Sirens, a new LP of road-worn, sharply woven tales chronicling a life worth living, love worth holding and the hard-earned lessons found along the ride. To cut the followup to their 2021 album Alvarado, The Wild Feathers decamped from Music City, U.S.A., to Los Angeles for sessions with producer Shooter Jennings (known for his work with Brandi Carlile, Turnpike Troubadours and Tanya Tucker, among others) at Dave’s Room in North Hollywood.
The band’s goal for their fifth studio album was to push beyond simply recreating a handful of demos and instead create something altogether new, with a fresh perspective heretofore untapped over the course of their previous releases. With that in mind, band members Ricky Young, Joel King, Taylor Burns, Ben Dumas and Brett Moore entered the studio with a largely blank slate, bringing almost 30 rough draft song ideas and then developing them into a head-turning collection.
The results showcase their distinctive ability to blend country storytelling with rock ’n’ roll showmanship, from Don’t Know, a rabble-rousing dose of surf-punk delivered with layered gang vocals and a rolling bass line, to Pretending, a stop-you-in-your-tracks piano ballad that’s bound to send lighters into the sky when the band takes to the road later this year. A true statement piece, Sirens is The Wild Feathers at their very best, a time-tested, harmonized culmination formed by a veteran band Jennings praises as “a collective of truly deep soulful musicians and writers who have come together and stayed together over the years.”
Founded in 2010 by Young, King, and Burns, The Wild Feathers have eluded easy classification over the course of four studio albums, a rarities release, and an acclaimed live album recorded at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium. Sirens marks like the next step forward — the album they’ve been building towards since their foundation over a decade ago. It marks the band’s most sprawling, richly descriptive album thus far, channeling heartland rock excellence, old-school guitar riffs, rootsy jams, and heartfelt stories tailor-made for open-road therapy with windows down and speakers blaring. Listen intently and without genre in mind. Because when the so-called Sirens make their sound on this new album, don’t worry about how to define it. Just enjoy the ride.”
