Brian Fallon & The Painkillers, Tim Barry

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Brian Fallon is known far and wide for his elemental gifts as a songwriter, musician, and storyteller, including four acclaimed solo albums and his role as founding member and frontman of The Gaslight Anthem. Over the course of nearly three decades, the New Jersey-based artist has crafted a constantly evolving body of work, booming with insistent imagery, defiant romanticism, and an extraordinary emotional acuity that has marked all variations of his music from the very start. 2023 saw The Gaslight Anthem return from a long hiatus with History Books, their sixth full-length album and first new studio LP in nine years. The much-beloved band marked the acclaimed album with an epic tour schedule that saw sold-out headline dates and show-stopping festival performances around the world, confirming their ongoing place among the top ranks of American rock ‘n’ roll bands. 

 TIM BARRY has spent two decades doing things his own way. His ninth studio album, Clear Blocks Ahead, out June 12 on Chunksaah Records, is no different. But it is a departure. Most of the Americana trappings Barry has built his career on are gone. In their place are ringing electric guitars and big rock and roll hooks. Not Marshall stacks cranked to 11, but something genuinely new for an artist who has earned the right to be surprising.

To make it, TIM BARRY partnered with the Spacebomb House Band, a tight unit of studio players based in his hometown of Richmond: Trey Pollard (guitars, piano), Matthew E. White (keys), Cameron Ralston (bass), and Pinson Chanselle (drums). White, whose work spans his own acclaimed solo records and production credits that have earned him serious respect well outside the Americana world, co-produced the album. They tracked nearly everything live, vocals included, and ran it through tape. "I think people are becoming exhausted by digital everything," TIM BARRY says. "Offering live takes to tape is exactly what I want to do."

The 13 tracks were pulled from nearly 40 songs, some of them dating back to the 1990s, stored across old cassette tapes, 4-tracks, phones, and wherever else ideas go to wait. Lyrically, Clear Blocks Ahead is pure TIM BARRY: pathos-laden figures, the kinds of margin-dwelling characters who could star in a Sam Shepard play or a Denis Johnson novel. But there is also hope running through this record, and it lands. Steady Locomotion is a gorgeous ode to simply surviving in a harsh world. On the anthemic Still Lit, he sings: "Get up and out the door / Run like you never run before." When asked if that sense of hope was intentional, TIM BARRY is direct: "It's just how I see the world."

The quieter tunes hold their own, too. Iron City Break is a deliciously bitter anti-ballad. W.W. Pool is a song about current events and conditions, held together by a triumphant loyalty to geography and family. Both bristle with fresh musical ideas, much of it born from the chemistry of this particular band in this particular room.

TIM BARRY's daughter, Lela Jane Barry, who turned 13 during the recording sessions, lends her voice to four tracks. She co-wrote Wreck-less with her father and takes on a key vocal role on Broken Songs, a cover of the Jim Ward song. "My dad and I play music together on a regular basis," Lela Jane says, "so writing together just seems normal in our family." On Broken Songs, she adds, "It was really fun to sing on it with my dad. And as a fan of Jim Ward and Tegan Quin, I was excited to be part of the song."

Clear Blocks Ahead lands twenty years after Rivanna Junction, TIM BARRY's debut full-length. He didn't plan it that way. "The internet is who reminds me of my album anniversaries," he says. "I had no idea until I was in the studio and realized that Clear Blocks Ahead would come out twenty years later."

Clear Blocks Ahead was engineered and mixed by Alex DeJong at Spacebomb Studio in Richmond, Virginia, and mastered at The Kitchen in Carrboro, North Carolina. Additional guitar by Josh Small on tracks 3 and 6, and Trey Pollard on tracks 4, 11, and 13.