Flaural's 'The Thinker' at Stereogum - Debut Album 'Postponement' Out April 19

Denver-based four-piece Flaural is set to release their debut LP, Postponement, which is due out April 19, 2019 and can be pre-ordered now HERE. Following a string of EPs - 2015's Thin King and 2016's Over Imaginary Cigarettes - Postponement has been three years in the making. During that time, the band experienced both communal growth and personal loss while writing and recording and playing shows across the United States. On March 27th, 2017, frontman Collin Johnson's father passed away after a long struggle with ALS, and Postponement's album cover serves as an homage to his death: an image resembling a clock with hands that read 3:27. The album's first single, "The Thinker," shared via Stereogum today, was originally written following his father's diagnosis, with Johnson singing, "Nobody likes when you're not well / Come up, come up, and feel better now." The song's lyrics were reworked after he passed, adding the line, "Unanswered questions still haunt me." The upbeat, emotional track ends with a dark, hectic, instrumental frenzy of piercing baritone saxophone squeaks layered over sporadic, aggressive guitar and driving drums.

Flaural is the unified sum of four equal parts. The hypnotic pulse of Nick Berlin's kraut rock drum grooves crystalize as the backdrop atop which sprawls the band's ethereal art-pop-songwriting. Connor Birch's expansive synths and keys, the unique virtuosity and aggression of Noah Pfaff's guitar playing, and the resonant croon of Colin Johnson's vocals and driving bass lines all coalesce into experimental psych rock that warmly invites the uninitiated listener into the unknown.

Early pieces of Postponement were initially recorded while touring through the Bay Area at the now defunct Animal Room Studio, but the album arrangements didn't begin to take form until the band settled back in Denver and linked up with producer / engineer James Barone (Beach House, Tennis). Over the course of the next year and a half, the band found pockets of time to finish the recordings. Time becoming a central theme of the album as a whole. With the album's release, Flaural will embark on an extensive North American tour, including dates with Sugar Candy Mountain and a hometown play at Denver's Bluebird Theater.

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Photo credit: Willie Peterson