.

Album Premiere: Dispatch Re-energizes for 'Circles Around the Sun'

Roots-rock heroes ready first studio outing in over a decade

August 14, 2012 12:00 PM ET
Dispatch, 'Circles Around the Sun'
Dispatch, 'Circles Around the Sun'
Courtesy of Bomber Records/UMG

Click to listen to Dispatch's album 'Circles Around the Sun'

Dispatch have been been away for quite some time, but on Circles Around the Sun, the roots-rockers get re-energized for their first studio full-length in over a decade. The opening title track churns forward with folk-rock force, rowdy energy and an uplifting, pastoral sound, while "Sign of the Times" takes a darker, quieter route with unsettling rhythmic chords and ghost-like vocals. Penultimate track "We Hold a Gun" finds the band exploring a more psychedelic, prog-rock sound, ambling through gentle prairie melodies and slowly building into a hazy climax of overpowering guitar textures before it fades away.

Circles Around the Sun is scheduled for an August 21st release. Dispatch will kick off a North American tour on September 20th in Vancouver. One dollar for each concert ticket sold will benefit Dispatch's charity, Ampifying Education

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

prev
Music Main Next

blog comments powered by Disqus
Daily Newsletter

Get the latest RS news in your inbox.

Sign up to receive the Rolling Stone newsletter and special offers from RS and its
marketing partners.

X

We may use your e-mail address to send you the newsletter and offers that may interest you, on behalf of Rolling Stone and its partners. For more information please read our Privacy Policy.

Song Stories

“He Will Break Your Heart”

Jerry Butler | 1960

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."

More Song Stories entries »