The Road Miles Premiere Video for “The Third Man”; Ballads from the Wasteland out Oct. 23
Athens-based rockers The Road Miles are preparing to release their new full-length, Ballads for the Wasteland, later this month. Their second long-player, it’s also the second offering from new imprint Archaeopia Records, which just last month introduced itself with the limited compilation The Sun, The Moon, The Mountain: A Passage Through Greek Psychedelia (review here). You might recall The Road Miles were featured on that release as well and made an immediate impression with their track “600 Miles.” That song shows up among the seven inclusions on Ballads for the Wasteland too, and proves to be part of an overarching narrative drawing from Western storytelling traditions and specifically the otherworldly thematic of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower.
That focus makes the role of frontwoman Afroditi Tavoulari all the more central to the band’s aesthetic. Atop creative arrangements of guitar from Epameinondas
Koutsoumpas and Michael Chrysos, Yannis Efthymiou‘s bass, Alex Darmis‘ keys and Anargiros Pantazis‘ drums, it’s Tavoulari who takes on the task of narrating the storyline progression that crosses through tracks like “Where I was Born, There I Will End,” “The Last Western Myth” and “Filthy Air,” serving as a steady presence in a vast soundscape of organ-laced classic heavy Western-style psych blues. Blink and you’re out in the desert amid some lost nighttime ritualism. The immersion happens quick with “Where I was Born, There I Will End” as the leadoff and longest track (immediate points), but it only builds from there across the record’s flat, sandy span, and under imagined stars, The Road Miles conjure demons a-wanderin’ and put spurs to the listener to charge deeper into the moodiness of the semi-title-track “Ballad for the Wasteland’ ahead of “The Third Man,” which provides the apex of the storyline ahead of instrumental epilogue closer “Wolves.”
A tense drum progression, sustained organ notes and jazzy guitar and bass give Tavoulari her backdrop, but come and go and come again effectively through repeated verses as the four-minute cut unfolds, not hurried but a definite pickup from “Ballad for the Wasteland” before it. The rise of a fuzzy guitar at the midpoint signals a move toward the apex to come, and sure enough, just before the three-minute mark, “The Third Man” bursts to life like a snake springing out from its coil and caps Ballads for the Wasteland with a brief but effective crescendo that would seem to deliver its poison well enough to let the audience know why exactly the “Wolves” are showing up at the end and just whose bones it is being picked.
Today I have the pleasure of hosting the premiere of The Road Miles‘ new video for “The Third Man,” which you can see below, followed by more info from Archaeopia Records via the PR wire about Ballads for the Wasteland, which again, should be out by the end of this month.
Please enjoy:
The Road Miles, “The Third Man” official video premiere
“The Third Man” is the sixth track in order from The Road Miles sophomore album “Ballads from the Wasteland”.
Composed//Arranged//Lyrics by: The Road Miles
Produced by: Alex Bolpasis
Engineered//Mixed by: Alex Bolpasis @Artracks Studios
Mastered by: Yiannis Christodoulatos @ Sweetpot Studios
Video written and directed by : Danai Simou
Here lies The Road Miles’ sophomore album. The roots of its narrative can be found somewhere between the deathly Mid-World of The Dark Tower, the mystifying Thebes of Oedipus Rex and the cursed Clarksdale Crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil.
Ballads for the Wasteland tracklisting:
1. Where I was Born, There I Will End
2. The Last Western Myth
3. 600 Miles
4. Filthy Air
5. Ballad for the Wasteland
6. The Third Man
7. Wolves
In their sophomore album, The Road Miles adopt an almost cinematic approach to their sound, transferring the auditor straight to the heart of that very desert. Here, every twist and turn of a desert travelogue can be experienced through music: the wearing route, the mortal hazards, the otherworldly delusions. Skillfully maneuvering from electrifying blues to nostalgic Americana and explosive heavy psych to wistful spoken word, the band perfectly captures the feeling of being adrift in such vast wastelands, in a psychedelic loop of fantasy and death.
With Ballads for the Wasteland, The Road Miles unveil their own distinctive narrative. A thrilling narrative, developed through seven heartfelt, esoteric mantras. A narrative of hollow outbursts and deafening silences. A narrative built with the same raw materials as every western myth: a gun, the dust and the open horizon.
The Road Miles is:
Afroditi Tavoulari / Vocals
Alex Darmis / Keys
Anargiros Pantazis / Drums
Epameinondas Koutsoumpas / Guitar
Michael Chrysos / Guitar
Yannis Efthymiou / Bass
Produced, engineered and mixed by Alex Bolpasis at Artracks Studios
Mastering by Yannis Christodoulatos at Sweetspot Studios
Artwork/Layout by George Gkousetis www.goographix.com/semitonelabs
Recorded during the summer of 2016 at Artracks Recording Studios in Athens, Greece
The Road Miles on Thee Facebooks
Archaeopia Records on Thee Facebooks
Archaeopia Records on Bandcamp
Tags: Archaeopia Records, Athens, Ballads for the Wasteland, Greece, The Road Miles, The Road Miles Ballads for the Wasteland
