Today American Standard Time is proud to premier a new track from M. Lockwood Porter‘s forthcoming album Communion In The Ashes. “Get Back To The Wild” is a cataclysmic canticle emblematic of Porter’s hard-won style, appropriately deemed “apocalyptic gospel”.
“Get Back To The Wild” opens a capella, with Porter reciting nostalgic stream of consciousness prose over piano chords. Drums, and synth join to build a beat, and soon electric guitar screams and drones underneath Porter’s tale of collapse. Everything escalates in heart-swelling mastery over “anxiety and doubt” and a self-aware Porter, uninhibited by earthly possessions, begins “revealing all my deepest fears”. A goosebump raising gospel choir joins and Porter is in full praise of the tumbling technocratic oligarchy singing “I never thought it’d take so many years to get back to the wild”.
This song has been a jaw-dropper in recent solo performances and we’re looking forward to seeing it performed with a full band on his upcoming tour.
Porter is a musician at the top of his game, his album How To Dream Again was one of the best of 2016, and Communion In The Ashes is (somehow) even better. Porter’s albums are authentic long players you want to hear from beginning to end. Last I spoke to Porter I mentioned how hopeful his “apocalyptic gospel” had become. He reminisced that after recent national and world political events he knew his songs had to offer more than protest, and hope became a theme.
Look for Communion In The Ashes to be out on Black Mesa Records on March 29th, 2019. Bonus facts: he record’s enthralling cover art was designed by William Schaff of Songs: Ohia fame.