Pete Freedman
Grab an Exclusive Download of Blackstone Rangers' “Frozen Echo.”
Last summer, with the release of its debut Into The Sea EP, Dallas' Blackstone Rangers immediately became an integral part of the North Texas music conversation. That five-song short-player, we said at the time, added a “much-desired” element of distorted electro-pop to the area's sonic landscape. That's for sure: In the end, Blackstone's debut ended up as our fourth-favorite North Texas album of 2012.
This coming November, you can expect the band to start building on its impressive early rep: That's when the band's planning to release its next project, tentatively being called Descendant.
Is it an EP? Is it an LP? Something else?
“It's six songs and 31 minutes long,” says guitarist Derek Kutzer. “We're not sure what it is. We're just sort of releasing it.”
Still, the band is doing so with a little more care this time around. Whereas Into The Sea mainly found the band recording tracks onto a laptop, Kutzer and his bandmates Ruth Ellen Smith (lead vox, synthesizers) and Daniel Bornhorst (drums) recorded this new output at Bornhorst's home studio in Oak Cliff — a spot the band has affectionately been calling “The White Lodge.”
“It was awesome,” Kutzer says of the process. “We already want to go back and start another album.”
With good reason: “Frozen Echo,” the first single released from Blackstone Rangers' sophomore effort, retains the same distortion and undulating feel that so made Into The Sea a treat, but it also boasts a fuller aesthetic — thanks in no small part to the recording studio, but also due to Smith's repetitive, cooing vocals, which run throughout the track.
Says Kutzer of the song, for which he and his bandmates are currently self-producing a new music video: “It definitely represents the mood of the rest of the album. The new songs aren't all lyric-less, though.”
Even if they were, though, that'd no big thing: “Frozen Echo” is a gorgeous song, one that rather easily grasps listeners into its groove.
Many thanks, then to Blackstone Rangers for offering the cut up to Central Track readers as an exclusive, free download on our site. Grab it off the Soundcloud embed below, then make plans to catch this ever-enticing local outfit at the Index Festival in Deep Ellum next month.
