We are happy to announce the UK/European/Australian release of our new album “Living” which came out on Monday, September 6. Here are some snippets about the album:
BBC: “First things first, this – the Virginia-based Carney brothers’ fifth in four years – is an excellent and unique record. … But what’s most admirable about Living is the disregard the band seemingly has for the conventions of modern rock. … Pedantic and elitist, yes, but there’s something that will be forever thrilling about young men who don’t want to plough fields that have been so thoroughly forged before.”
NME: “The American independent label Thrill Jockey, which made its name during the post-rock boom of the ’90s, is undergoing a heavy, psychedelic renaissance at the moment. In the green-thumb, orange-amp, black-heart department alone they’ve released astounding albums by and in the last 12 months, and now you can add Pontiak to that list. Brothers Van, Lain and Jennings Carney recorded this twitchy rock beast on the farm they live on in Virginia and, true to its origins, the autistic, head-nodding riffs speak of isolation.”
MusicOMH: “Pontiak being the sort of band that rattles organs out of alignment with their impossibly loud live show, Living could well have been an incomprehensible, sludgy mess. But, as it is, Living is a thick slab of riffy backwoods blues-rock that works as well on big speakers as it does on headphones – in either setting, it engenders a sense of general unease and spooked-out edge-of-seat anticipation in the listener.”
Rock-a-Rolla: “With its four months of recording sessions, Living underwent a relatively epic gestation in comparison to the previous releases … The level of intuitive communication and familiarity which successfully allows such ferocious recording schedules makes itself know musically in the rough-hewn and organic feel of the trio’s modern-day vintage rock experimentation.”
Rock Sound: “Their fuzzy-toned, retro-rock lumber leaves this writer all set to scribble some biolerplate pish about slow-moving country life … (Living) continues along … that of Crazy Horse-ish extrovert jamming and counterculture electric blues riffmonsters like the Groundhogs.”
Sid Smith: “their songs often have a provisional, almost perfunctory feel about them. It’s a gamble which in less seasoned hands might be risky, but since this band of brothers have been working this way since 2006, it’s carried off so engagingly that it’s easy to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Soundblab 7/10“You have to be prepared, have no preconceptions or wishes you want fulfilling. In short, you need to be dedicated to the listening process. … This is an album welcome only in solitude and darkness, for contemplation and meditation; here, and only here, will the atmosphere swallow you and like you best.”