WL//WH Review: FEDERALE “Reverb & Seduction” LP [Jealous Butcher Records]

photo by Jason Quigley

On July 12, FEDERALE (Portland) published their new “Reverb & Seduction” LP via Jealous Butcher Records (Portland). It’s an adventurous album that flows beautifully, like a river. It has several peculiarities and many nice musical surprises. It’s the kind of music suitable for endless road trips in the summer heat(wave) on the world’s routes. There are reasons and reasons for all this, but first I want to show you what I found in the press release that better explains this work firsthand.

“Reverb & Seduction “LP is a 10-track tour-de-force road trip from psych rock to country duets, never straying too far from the spaghetti western roots that inspired the band many blood-moons ago…..Led by Collin Hegna, Federale marks 20 years with this release. A member of The Brian Jonestown Massacre for equally as long, Hegna has been party to a lot of feedback & fuzzed out guitars…..These musical homages involve a lineup of well-known Portland rock-scene vets, including talents from The Dandy Warhols, The Shivas, Roselit Bone, Rogue Wave and Delines. Members of The Black Angels, Jenny Don’t & The Spurs, Mission Spotlight, and Courtney Barnett’s Band also contribute, as well as Grammy nominee Hunter Lea (Nancy Sinatra / Lee Hazlewood reissue producer) and Andrew Joslyn (Nancy Wilson, Kei$ha, Macklemore, Mark Lanegan).

Very cool and important info, and all I hear in their new sixth album is compelling and groovy in all, inspiration, song-crafting, performance, the studio sound, and probably the most important thing is what it creates and what it leaves at the end, and this is a wide range of musical situations and a small-big smile that these stories leave you at the end of their narration, I somehow became an accomplice of the album.

Everything that happens within the prism of FEDERALE is a creative filtering of the heritage of Ennio Morricone, Lee Hazelwood, the psychedelic rock of the 70s, and a very cool and fresh insight into what can be characterized as today’s independent-rock-music.

Stories come and go, bringing with them new or different music to accompany them. The atmosphere is sometimes unpleasantly pleasant, and vice versa. The band plays amazingly and sometimes “dangerously” at certain points, and all this happens with certainty and a clear goal from all of them: to create a unique soundtrack for everything they want to sing, and they do it perfectly.

Now why am I writing all this? I just really liked their new album and I believe that many of you will discover an amazing soundtrack for the summer, and when this is over…we’ll just put on our long sleeves and hit the repeat button again, just plain and simple. I could write more “epics” like the bonfires at night with alcohol, the dusty roads to nowhere, the things that happened that day in the middle of nowhere when everything went awfully spectacular, the scorpions and the snakes, the ghosts that saved your life, the pistols, and some love, but I guess it is better to listen to this “Reverb & Seduction” LP by FEDERALE…so, press play and listen loud!!!

P.S. They are on tour these days, visit their links!!!

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