Emerald Valley

• 2ND ALBUM FROM SUPER GROUP WITH CORIN TUCKER (Sleater-Kinney, Heavens To Betsy), PETER BUCK (R.E.M.), SCOTT McCAUGHEY (Minus 5, Young Fresh Fellows), KURT BLOCH (Fastbacks) and now with LINDA PUTMAN (ZUZU'S PETALS). With Emerald Valley, Filthy Friends have proven their collective mettle, crafting a thematic suite of songs that finds the quintet digging deeper into their bag of musical tricks and giving Corin Tucker (Sleater-Kinney, Heavens To Betsy, Corin Tucker Band) room to rage about and mourn the fate of our planet and the people who inhabit it. While it starts off with idyllic imagery (“Rolling fields, they speak your name/vibrant green is here again”), the album and its title track slowly reveal the ugly underneath, with human arrogance and hubris hurting the Earth and the people who take on “backbreaking work for little pay.” From there, the Friends address growing concerns over oil production and distribution (“Pipeline”), gentrification and income inequality within the band’s hometown of Portland, Oregon (“One Flew East”), and taking on the voice of the desperate souls that are getting crushed under the wheels of capitalism (“Last Chance County”). The band paints these themes with many different shades of the rock palette, nestling a snapping punk tune between a bit of jangly pop and an almost-shoegaze ballad, with stops along the way for songs that burn as hot and move as slow as lava and tunes that stay steady and fast as a rocket launch. We could all take a lesson from Filthy Friends. As proven by Emerald Valley, when a group of like-minded people gather their individual strengths together and point them toward a singular goal, there’s no telling how powerful they can become and what an impact they can make on the world at large. 1. Emerald Valley 2. Pipeline 3. November Man 4. Only Lovers Are Broken 5. Angels 6. The Elliott 7. One Flew East 8. Break Me 9. Last Chance County 10. Hey Lacey Cat. No. KRS654 Release date: May 3, 2019