After a falling out with RCA over the release of their sophomore album “Harmonies for the Haunted,” New York rock act stellastarr* is slated to return with “Civilized” on July 7. The ten song set is the group’s first full length recording in almost four years, and will come out on their new formed Bloated Wife Records, with distribution being provided by Warner Music’s ADA.
“I think we’re definitely excited to get new material out there,” guitarist/vocalist Shawn Christensen tells Billboard.com. “When we left RCA, as a result, we took a year off to regroup. We did a polished record for a second one and wanted to go back to basics. Make sure everything was really raw, aggressive, urgent, fun, and dark. On the second record, we went for something more atmospheric, and this time, we went in the other direction.”
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Already, there’s been interest brewing for the group. The first single, “Graffiti Eyes” premiered on “Gossip Girl,” an avenue that Christensen wants to explore this time around. “There’s a lot of opportunities out there beyond radio that we’re going to explore – and that we didn’t really explore the first time around.”
Christensen and the group are optimistic about their new beginnings this year. While they’re going to concentrate on touring and securing labels outside of the U.S., they haven’t ruled out releasing other acts via Bloated Wife. “We don’t want to go crazy or anything,” Christensen says. “We’re going to see how it goes over the summer with us and then we’ll definitely start exploring that avenue.”
Stellastarr* is slated to play a radio show for WFNX/Boston on July 8 and then will hit the road starting July 15 for a national headlining club tour.
Here is the track list for “Civilized”:
“Robot”
“Freak Out”
“Tokyo Sky”
“Numbers”
“Graffiti Eyes”
“Prom Zombie”
“Warchild”
“People”
“Move On”
“Sonja Cries”