Waiting For Henry to Release Sophomore Album 'Town Called Patience' 8/26

"Town Called Patience is really our own confusing self-help guide," says Dave Slomin, songwriter and singer for Waiting For Henry. "It's a little essay on how we escaped our early rock and roll years somewhat intact, and a bit of a roadmap for where to go from there." Listen to Town Called Patience here

After hearing the finished tracks, Mitch Easter, the album's producer and legendary guru of R.E.M.'s classic albums Murmur and Reckoning, understood Slomin's sentiment, affirming, "This record is really heavy and emotional, which to me is just wonderful! We hear lots of music that sounds perfectly good, and just washes over us. Town Called Patience really does give me the chills, wow! I love that, I always want that definable thing that 'gets to me,' you know?"

From a listener's perspective the band's musical "roadmap" is a joyous experience. "Their music," noted Holland's Currents of Pop, "draws not only from the archives of alt-country, but also incorporates influences from the heyday of the American underground." To find this joy, Waiting For Henry looked to the past for a path forward. After their critically acclaimed 2013 debut album, Ghosts & Compromise, garnered lots of loose R.E.M. comparisons, the band took that as kismet, seeking out Easter for the follow up. "We took a blind shot," says Slomin, "and sent Mitch our first album through a friend who recorded with him years ago. He responded right away, which to us was magic in itself."

If emotional immediacy is a unifying factor of meaningful music, Easter heard that "spark" in the band..."It's always nice when I hear what I think of as 'real songs', by which I mean songs that have, dare I say, depth. All songs use familiar musical bits and pieces, but only some songs get to your emotions, or make you think, or smile... Who knows what this is exactly, but you know it when you hear it! These guys write songs that have that spark."

Similarly, Waiting For Henry found their producer's impact immediate. "In reaching out to Mitch," intimates Slomin, "we were after a sound. When R.E.M. came to him, they were a raw talent in which Mitch really unearthed a new musical tradition. He did a similar thing with us. His studio is filled with all these exotic vintage instruments and some really special guitars that he places flawlessly. For example, at Easter's prodding, the band tracked a 12-string acoustic for the first time. Even though Easter said, "most rock bands are afraid of it," Easter's vintage Gibson B25-12 became such an important part of the album's sound, that Slomin had to hit eBay after the sessions to track down his own.

Searching for honesty and originality, Easter noted "one striking aspect of this band, is the contract between their very "pro" sound and (guitarist/singer) Dave Ashdown's off the cuff, spontaneous approach. Waiting For Henry mix up the rehearsed and the spontaneous to create this really agreeable sound which you can return to and hear something new every time. They weren't working by a checklist, they were always thinking."

Notwithstanding the sonic legacy they sought to conjure, Town Called Patience truly has its own sound. It's purely American, but also very personal in place and passion. The opening track, "Musconetcong", uses a watery guitar jangle to mimic its namesake, an oft flooding river snaking through rural New Jersey, Slomin's home state. Musconetcong's wandering becomes a metaphor for the storyteller's search of meaning in the lines: "Falling down these one ways and afterthoughts / Potholes filled with hallowed ground / I still rely on things that you never said / Please take me back Hackettstown." Another song set in the Garden State is "Parsippany", about Slomin's coming to terms with the breakup of his former band, EMI/Deep South act, Mr. Henry, at a time he settled down to start a family. The tune began as a country song, but to Easter's ears it was a punk rocker, needing heavier guitars to draw out the chorus' emotions: "Takes a little time to be the man you wanted, I told you girl this heart is haunted..."

Other songs also speak of life defining experiences, but from different angles. The jangle-rocker, "Gutterball", pays homage to Steve Wynn's great 1990's indie band. Early in his career, while following a solo path, Slomin opened a European tour for Doug Sahm and caught a Gutterball show in Copenhagen. The power of that one show inspired Slomin to quit the solo scene and start Mr. Henry. In the Haggard influenced "Matter of Time", the chorus hook, "Tell me does it matter, or is it just a matter of time," is a reflection on reaching a time in life when the power of divorce has taken over the lives of too many friends.

Waiting For Henry also has a passionate songwriter in singer/lead guitarist, David Ashdown. A Chicagoan, born in England, who may be the world's biggest Ace Frehley fan, Ashdown brings to the band what Huffington Post called "serious Midwestern rock and roll sensibilities." Never afraid to speak his mind, his gritty waltz "Hangnail" uses the title as a frank metaphor for those ghosts of love that somehow won't fade. His Who-esque rocker "Angel on the Run", a memoriam to a friend who passed too young, continues "Hangnail"'s theme. But in the uplifting "Could It Be", Ashdown finds "in a moment of clarity," the hope that pervades this album.

The same hope and search for connection that defines Town Called Patience defines the band. Formed in 2010, Waiting For Henry was a reconnection of three former schoolmates, Slomin, Ashdown and Chun, who got together to make the album they never made years ago. Originally intended as a DIY project to give to friends, their first album, Ghosts & Compromise, took an unexpected and organic path to critical acclaim throughout the US and Europe, earning a spot on several "Best Of" lists for 2013 and found its way to radio in over 30 states and a spot on the Americana charts. The band was invited to Toronto's NXNE Fest in 2014 and 2015 and has sold out NYC's Mercury Lounge. In 2015, drummer Rob Draghi joined to round out the quartet.

Town Called Patience was mixed by Grammy-Winner Darrell Thorpe (Beck, Radiohead, Paul McCartney), and mastered by Greg Calbi (Murmur, Born To Run, Damn the Torpedoes). Release is set for August 26, 2016.

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