The Laurels Announce US Tour + Playing Austin Psych Fest

Article Contributed by Tell All Your … | Published on Friday, March 22, 2013

The Laurels are a four-piece from Sydney, Australia who create luscious, complex and dangerous psychedelic shoegaze bliss. Known for their mind-blowing live show, The Laurels have shared stages and tours with the likes of The Black Angels, Wooden Shjips, Lee Ranaldo, Swervedriver, Low, Tame Impala, Dead Meadow and A Place To Bury Strangers to name but a few. Whilst notoriety as a floppy haired sonic assault machine was flattering, it felt incomplete to the band, and instilled the desire to showcase their songs as they were meant to be heard. Although The Laurels have given new meaning to the words ‘highly anticipated album’, Plains is the album they’ve been wanting to make for years.Gerald Murnane’s novel ‘The Plains’ provided inspiration for the album’s title and Plains is The Laurels’ “Second great age of exploration”, a search for meaning in an abstract, indefinite space; a reflection of interminably long drives from show to show through Australia’s rural landscape; the feeling that anything is possible but not quite knowing how to make it happen.Producer Liam Judson (Belles Will Ring, Cloud Control), a long-time friend of the band who helped with the recording of their acclaimed 2011 debut EP Mesozoic, was the man to dismantle The Laurels’ wall of sound brick by brick.Over the Plains 10 songs, dual guitarists and vocalists Piers Cornelius and Luke O’Farrell distort, wind and loop their formidable guitar sounds around the driving bass of Conor Hannan and unwavering drums of Kate Wilson, highlighting both the depth and the breadth of The Laurels’ songwriting.Plains opens with the fuzzed out, sprawling guitars of ‘Tidal Wave’ then plunges head first into dangerous terrain with the visceral ‘Changing The Timeline’. The dreamlike states of ‘Glacier’ and ‘Mesozoic’ are interwoven with the snarly edge of ‘One Step Forward (Two Steps Back)’ and the anthemic, driving pop of ‘Manic Saturday’, while album closer ‘A RIVAL’ sounds as epic on record as it does closing out The Laurels’ live set.The Laurels are releasing Plains in the US on April 16th. They're playing their first US shows in April and May and have been announced  to play at Austin Psych Fest 2013.