You know, Masters of Reality drummer John Leamy lives in Jersey, you’d think maybe they’d book a New York date or something, but no. Out Leamy flies to California to join Chris Goss and whoever among their desert luminary friends happens to be around that week (according to Goss, it’s Dave Catching, Mathias Schneeberger and Abby Travis) for a string of tour dates so far from my driveway they might as well be in China.

Then, in January, Goss and Leamy literally fly right over the East Coast of the US en route to the UK, where they play 10 shows. 10 shows! I can’t even get one! No justice, man.

I’ll have an interview with Goss posted sometime in the next couple weeks, so keep an eye out for that. In the meantime, here’s the current batch of tour dates off the PR wire:

US headlining tour dates:
11/10 – House of Blues, Anaheim, CA
11/11 – 4th & B Street, San Diego, CA
11/12 – House of Blues, Los Angeles, CA
11/16 – El Corazon, Seattle, WA
11/17 – Lola’s, Portland, OR
11/20 – Pappy & Harriets, Pioneertown, CA

UK dates w/ The Cult
01/18/2011 O2 Academy Leeds, UK
01/19/2011 O2 Academy Bristol, UK
01/21/2011 Hammersmith Apollo London, UK
01/22/2011 Cambridge Corn Exchange, UK
01/23/2011 O2 Academy Bournemouth Boscombe, UK
01/25/2011 Rock City Nottingham, UK
01/26/2011 Wolverhampton Civic Hall Wolverhampton, UK
01/27/2011 O2 Academy 2 Newcastle, UK
01/29/2011 Academy Glasgow, Scotland
01/30/2011 Academy Manchester, UK

Chris Goss has been operating under the Masters of Reality banner for more than 20 years now, the band making its debut with 1988?s Rick Rubin-produced self-titled (aka The Blue Garden). Since then, Goss has proved the only mainstay, though for the last decade, drummer John Leamy has served as his creative partner in the band and there have been plenty of guests along the way, from Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri on 2001?s Deep in the Hole to David Catching and Brendan McNichol (both contributors to Queens of the Stone Age and other Palm Desert acts) on Masters of Reality?s latest, Pine/Cross Dover.

To say the album is long-awaited is an understatement. For more than a year, periodic release dates have come and gone with still no word as to when the record would actually be out. Goss, who initially pushed back the release because he wanted to keep writing, kept mostly silent throughout, leading to speculation as to the label situation with Brownhouse and Mascot Records. The upside is that although it?s only currently available in the US as an import, it?s still available. It?s been five years since Give Us Barabbas came out. A follow-up was long overdue.

And to that end, Pine/Cross Dover is an immediate success. Though opener ?King Richard TLH? doesn?t have the same striking sensation of ?The Ballad of Jody Fosty,? it also hasn?t had half a decade of me nerding out over it. Yet. One of the MySpace preview tracks for the album ? and for good reason ? it?s your quintessential latter day Masters of Reality track, with a lively rock progression and multiply tracked Goss vocals in the chorus. Of the two pieces of the album, divided in the track listing, liner notes and artwork as the separate entities Pine and Cross Dover, Pine strikes as the more straightforward. Even the darker, lonelier ?Absinthe, Jim and Me? is less druggy than the material on 1999?s Welcome to the Western Lodge, with a churning verse and distorted cabaret chorus. Likewise, ?Worm in the Silk? rests its head in a rich groove and hypnotic desert psychedelia.

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