Music

SLAUGHTER BEACH, DOG ANNOUNCE HEADLINE UK TOUR FOR JAN 2020

02/10/2019

328 5 minutes read

GUESTLIST/PROMO AVAILABLE
UPON REQUEST

New record ‘Safe And Also No Fear’ out now on Big Scary Monsters

Watch/share the latest single ‘Heart Attack‘

Listen to the two previous singles
‘One Down’ & ‘Good Ones’

Download press shot HERE – credit: Jess Flynn

Today, Philadelphia’s Slaughter Beach, Dog – which began as the solo project of Jake Ewald (Modern Baseball) but has grown into a band with the addition of bassist Ian Farmer (Modern Baseball), Nick Harris (All Dogs) and Zack Robbins (Superheaven) – have announced a series of UK headline shows due to take place in January 2020.

The dates follow their new record, ‘Safe And Also No Fear‘, which was released in August and received acclaim from the likes of Upset who said, “there are always treasures to be found within the words of Jake Ewald, and this album is no exception”, and Pitchfork who said “Jake Ewald of Modern Baseball has found his voice as a musician”.

The first Slaughter Beach, Dog UK tour took place in 2018, but this time around the the band will be playing bigger venues and longer, more varied sets. Speaking about the dates Jake Ewald says:

“I’m really excited to play some longer sets with the full band for the first time in the UK. We’ve had a good time diversifying our set now that we’ve been playing as a group for a few years and we actually have a handful of records under our collective belt. We get to throw in a little bit of everything, discography-wise. Also, I think the farther we get from home, the more we lean into the weird stuff on stage. So I’m looking forward to that.”

They will also take be taking Bristol band Dogeyed on tour with them, with Jake saying “When we were over last year we had the pleasure of meeting Harriet and Tim from Dogeyed, and we thought of them as soon as we started planning this run. Luckily for us, they agreed to come! I’m excited to get to watch them play every night.”

Slaughter Beach, Dog will play the following dates:

11th Jan – Brighton, The Hope & Ruin
12th Jan – Southampton, The Joiners
13th Jan – Bristol, The Louisiana
14th Jan – Nottingham, The Bodega
15th Jan – Glasgow, The Hug and Pint
16th Jan – Manchester, Soup Kitchen
17th Jan – Leeds, Brudenell Social Club
18th Jan – London, The Lexington

Guestlist available upon request – will@prescriptionpr.co.uk

‘Safe And Also No Fear’ out now on Big Scary Monsters – order HERE

Tour Poster:

Slaughter Beach, Dog Bio:

Across the previous Slaughter Beach, Dog albums, Jake Ewald has crafted a specific sound. It’s one that incorporates pop music, indie-rock, folk, and just the faintest dash of punk in order to create something that’s accessible but still artistically rich. With Safe And Also No Fear, the band’s third album, Ewald has abandoned his usual practices in service of creating something that, try as one might, isn’t so easy to describe.

In the wake of 2017’s Birdie, an album awash in warm tones and bubbly pop hooks, Safe And Also No Fear can’t help but feel like a turn toward darkness. It’s not one that’s instigated by the outside world—as inescapable as it may be—but instead the dramatic shifts of a person’s interior life. Where Ewald once offered tightly woven vignettes about characters that mirrored the people in his life, Safe And Also No Fear finds him naked at the album’s center, questioning everything he knows about himself. Around him, bassist Ian Farmer, guitarist Nick Harris, and drummer Zack Robbins spin out songs that are dense, swirling amalgams of difficult questions and hard-earned realizations—the kind that can’t be expressed through the accepted structures of pop music.

This isn’t to say there aren’t hooks, as songs like “Good Ones” and “One Day” have effervescent melodies anchoring them, but Safe And Also No Fear generally avoids taking the clear-cut path. As Ewald tells it, that’s a horrifying thing to put out into the world. After putting the finishing touches on the album, he sat down and listened back to the demos he’d first made, then the album itself, and realized it sounded unlike anything he’d ever done before. His creative impulses had changed over the years, and the result was a record that maybe his followers wouldn’t actually like.

Ewald seemingly addresses this anxiety during the album’s most ambitious track, the seven-minute long “Black Oak.” It’s fitting that midway through the longest song Ewald has ever written he offhandedly remarks, “Realizing this may put my career on the line.” It’s part of a larger narrative, but one that’s more textural and ambiguous than what the band has been known for. Is that lyric about Ewald and Slaughter Beach, Dog? We’ll maybe never know—and that’s the beauty of Safe And Also No Fear. It’s an album so profoundly singular, one that sees the band willing to wade out into deep waters without a life vest, that it encourages you to go out there with it. You hear the band fully embrace the unknown at the end of “Black Oak,” when the song explodes open and Ewald’s vocals are looped into a refrain that’s haunting and impossible to sing along with accurately. You can pick out phrases and hum a melody, but there’s no didactic meaning behind it. It’s there for you to find if you need it.

Safe And Also No Fear is a bold gesture, not just because of the music contained therein, but because it required Ewald to interrogate his artistic tendencies, breaking himself of his habits in service of making something he never thought he could. That involved trusting his band, with whom Ewald collaborated for a full year of writing and recording. Unlike Birdie, where Ewald played every instrument, with Safe And Also No Fear everyone’s fingerprints are on it. Though the album is a product of Ewald committing to his vision, it’s also proof of the way that Farmer, Harris, and Robbins are able to expand Slaughter Beach, Dog’s sonic boundaries in subtle, evocative ways.

The result of that collaboration is Safe And Also No Fear, an album that doesn’t leave easy clues as to its influences or intentions, instead offering up vague sketches of what it feels like to be a person who is constantly confused and anxious, yet completely committed to finding a way through it. It’s not simple, and Ewald’s never didactic, but the message begins to come through the more you revisit it. Every part of Safe And Also No Fear is a risk, and that’s exactly what makes it so beautiful. It’s a record that sees a band fully committed to their art, in spite of what everyone else would advise. And if you’re listening close enough, it really does make a lot of sense.

Follow SBD online:

Facebook
Twitter
Bandcamp
Big Scary Monsters