Wax Idols stream new album, ‘American Tragic’

‘American Tragic’ by Wax Idols is out Friday via Collect Records, and now you can stream the album in its entirety via SoundCloud. Previously released singles “Lonely You,” Deborah,” and “I’’m Not Going have been praised for their biting honesty, post-punk grit, and soaring melodies, and the full album reveals many more similar revelations.

You could say that a lot has happened since the release of Wax Idols’ 2013 album, ‘Discipline + Desire.’ The band’s singer-songwriter, Hether Fortune, supported the album as best she could, spent some time in 2014 as a touring player in White Lung, went through a heart breaking divorce, and then sat down to make ‘American Tragic.’ This is the band’’s third album and first for Collect Records.

“Divorce is a part of this record, yes, but this is not an entirely sad album,” Fortune explains. “”The whole spectrum of grief is represented here — shock, pain, anger, loneliness, and then finding a way to work through all of that and not only survive, but thrive. That’’s what I was going through. I was kind of trying to save myself.””

‘American Tragic’ is not only a deeply personal record, but a chiefly independent one: As a songwriter and true multi-instrumentalist, Fortune wrote and recorded everything but the drums on ‘American Tragic’ — a feat only bolstered by the album’’s compelling performances and meticulous execution, but a little known fact nonetheless. Co-produced by Fortune and Monte Vallier (Weekend, Mark Eitzel, The Soft Moon, Vaniish), the only other player on this record is drummer Rachel Travers.

To say, then, that ‘American Tragic’ is simply a break-up album is to sell short an idea that Fortune has been playing with over the entire arc of Wax Idols’ discography, and that is the notion that personhood is neither fixed nor consistent: We can be independent and attached, in need of discipline and desire, or even fully autonomous with a little bit of help. As Fortune points out here, even America, for all its symbolism and mythic value, also rests in tragedy.

Track list:

1. A Violent Transgression
2. Lonely You
3. I’’m Not Going
4. Deborah
5. Goodbye Baby
6. Glisten
7. Severely Yours
8. At Any Moment
9. Seraph
 

Wax Idols are performing tonight at Baby’’s All Right in Brooklyn as a part of the Collect Records / Brooklyn Vegan CMJ Showcase along with No Devotion, Creepoid, and Foxes in Fiction. Proceeds from the event go to Callen-Lorde, an organization that provides health care services to underprilvelaged members of the LGBT community.  Wax Idols then heads out on a month-long tour with Them Are Us Too – full list of dates below.

Tour dates:
Oct. 14 – Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right (Brooklyn Vegan/Collect Records Showcase)
Oct. 18 – San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill (w/ Screature & DJs Justin Anastasi and Omar)
Oct. 20 – Portland, OR @ TBA
Oct. 21 – Seattle, WA @ The Highline (w/ Charms & Dead Spells)
Oct. 24 – Lincoln, NE @ Knickerbocker’s
Oct. 27 – Chicago, IL @ The Empty Bottle
Oct. 28 – Detroit, MI @ Marble Bar (w/ Blood Stone)
Oct. 31 – Brooklyn, NY @ St. Vitus (w/ Azar Swan & DJ Becka Diamond)
Nov. 2 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
Nov. 4 – Austin, TX @ Mohawk
Nov. 5 – San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tigers
Nov. 7 – Phoenix, AZ @ TBA (w/ Body of Light & Ascetic House DJs)
Nov. 8 – Los Angeles, CA @ Complex (w/ Pleasures & DJ Shannon Cornett)