Dude! Feels like it’s been, like, friggin’ six centuries since we last heard from Joan of Arc… Oh, wait: It HAS BEEN.
But seriously, folks: it’s also been a legit five years (a pretty insane stretch of time measured in indie rock years) since we last heard from Tim Kinsella’s almost-as-legendary band of the same name Joan of Arc. Luckily, much like Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan, Kinsella and his cohorts have the power to bring their “Maid of Orléans” back from death and into the present-day whenever the hell it suits them! And today, well, it must suit them, cuz the band has just announced the release of the first new Joan of Arc album since 2011’s Life Like.
The new one is called He’s Got The Whole This Land Is Your Land In His Hands, and it’s out January 20 via Joyful Noise. The album’s 11 tracks were recorded in various locations in and around the band’s hometown of Chicago, including a closed-down and vacant former recording studio (Soma), the basketball court inside a downtown hotel, an art gallery, an industrial space out on the west side, and even “a friend’s AirBnB.”
But kickstarting a 20-year-old project is still no easy task. “We had to throw away the 38 songs I wrote that I thought I liked before we could really begin,” Kinsella says. “We trusted each other enough to throw all the songs away, to even throw away every preconceived idea about which one of us should take position at which instrument. We just hit Record and played and our collective tastes emerged.”
Luckily for all us listeners though, it’s like we’ve each got a special, time-traveling phone booth of our own, because we get to skip right over all that pesky, painful artistic-growth nonsense and get right to the delicious, consumable goods! To wit: you can check out the new video for the album’s second track, “This Must Be The Placenta,” down below, and pre-order the album in pink vinyl, black vinyl, digital, and CD formats from Joyful Noise any ol’ time between now and January 20 that you feel like! Okay, one caveat: there’s also a limited, hand-numbered “VIP edition” of 500 that is scheduled to ship before Christmas, which includes an additional LP with “extended tracks” on “split-color orange/clear & green/clear vinyl.” The first 100 are also signed by the band, so you’ll have to kinda act fast if you want to snag one of those.
But still: compared to everyone else mentioned in this news post, we’ve got it on easy street, readers. <3
He’s Got the Whole This Land is Your Land in His Hands tracklisting:
01. Smooshed that Cocoon
02. This Must Be The Placenta
03. Stranged That Egg Yolk
04. Full Moon and Rainbo Repair
05. Cha Cha Cha Chakra
06. Grange Hex Stream
07. Two-Toothed Troll
08. New Wave Hippies
09. Never Wintersbone You
10. F is for Fake
11. Ta-ta Terrordome
More about: Joan of Arc, Tim Kinsella
