THE BLACK ANGELS: WILDERNESS OF MIRRORS (INDIE EXCLUSIVE, OPAQUE BLUE/RED VINYL)

The best music reflects a wide-screen view of the world back at us, helping distill the universal into something far more personal. Since forming in Austin in 2004, The Black Angels have become standard-bearers for modern psych-rock that does exactly that, which is one of many reasons why the group’s new album, Wilderness of Mirrors, feels so aptly named. Indeed, in the five years since the release of the band’s prior album, Death Song, and the two-plus years spent working on Wilderness of Mirrors, pandemics, political tumult and the ongoing devastation of the environment have provided ample fodder for the Black Angels’ signature sonic approach. If the group’s members were terrified as they honed new music heading into an election year, they realized they didn’t even know how scary things could still get. So, they looked inward, focusing on both their ongoing creative and musical development as well as their own struggles amid the external chaos. Wilderness of Mirrors hits even more close to home, as the group recorded solely in the friendly confines of Austin for the first time in more than a decade and entrusted co-production duties to its longtime front-of-house engineer, Brett Orrison.

A1. Without A Trace
A2. History Of Future
A3. Empires Falling
A4. El Jardin
B5. La Pared (Govt. Wall Blues)
B6. Firefly
B7. Make It Known
B8. The River
C9. Wilderness Of Mirrors
C10. Here & Now
C11. 100 Flowers Of Paracusia
D12. A Walk On The Outside
D13. Vermillion Eyes
D14. Icon
D15. Suffocation