New Threads is Dead

New Threads is Dead is the fourth studio album by American psychedelic rock band The Free Rock Trio. It was released on July 16, 2021 via Pink Hat Records and features many of the band's most popular singles, such as "Slow Emotion," "Noggin," "Fallacies," and "Ida (In the Hills)". This album continues the trend of more structured, commercial music that the band introduced on their previous LP, Gone Wild. It is the first album by the trio to be recorded remotely, and as a result features no live jams or instrumental tracks.

Background & Recording
Following the release of October 2020's Gone Wild, the trio then-known as New Threads decided to take an indefinite hiatus. After three studio albums, two live albums, a podcast, and two seasons of Bootleg Series all in a year's time, tensions were high and the trio needed to spend some time apart. These factors, coupled with the worsening state of the COVID-19 pandemic in Massachusetts, led to guitarist Jacob Keplinger starting work on a solo album.

The hiatus was brought on by an argument that stemmed from the discussion featured in Gone Wild Podcast episode 4, "Gone Wild." The band argued for nearly two hours and disbanded shortly after. But before they recorded that episode, they recorded a live demo of "Slow Emotion," a track Keplinger had written alone and was eager to bring to the group. This live demo featured an entirely different drumbeat by Siegel and a naturally similar production style to Gone Wild. Following the trio's argument and disbanding, the recording was buried and eventually re-recorded months later (The band did eventually release this demo in October 2021 as Slow Emotion 2020). Out of this drama sparked Keplinger's interest in producing a solo record, one that would feature a new version of "Slow Emotion."

Keplinger wrote around twenty songs for this record, including the nine in the final tracklist. The first song to surface, however, would be "Hardship," the would-be lead single from the new album. Keplinger released the track under his own name on February 12, 2021. The project continued to move forward when drummer Justin Siegel asked for demos of the new music to track drums to. Initially, Siegel was to play drums on Keplinger's solo album, but as Keplinger continued to mold the tracklist, it didn't take long for bassist James Siegel to get involved.

With the trio now back to work, the question was raised whether or not it should be a New Threads album. One album title that Keplinger was considering for his solo release was New Threads is Dead- with this title in mind, the band decided to undergo a complete rebrand from New Threads to The Free Rock Trio in March 2021. This would serve two purposes: first, to add a sense of "freshness" and "new" to what would be Keplinger and Siegel's twelfth release, and second, to bridge the transition by keeping the words "New Threads" in the album's title (this way streamers can search for New Threads and still find the Trio's work easily).

Similarly to "Schlitz," New Threads is Dead was tracked entirely remote, with each of the three members recording their tracks in isolation. This method was the original plan for Gone Wild, but low COVID-19 case numbers deemed it unnecessary at the time. The drums were recorded at PINK HAT® Boston; guitars, vocals, mixing, and mastering was done at Pink Hat Studios in Cheshire, MA; bass was tracked at James' house.

This is the only release in the entire PINK HAT® catalog to feature no co-writers; every track here was written solely by Jacob Keplinger during the band's hiatus from November '20 - January '21. It is also the first release by the Trio to not feature any group improvisation, one of the trio's signatures. This trend towards more commercial music has been followed since the band's earliest recordings in 2019, Buford, with each album featuring more and more structured material and less improvisational "free rock" jams.

Release & Reception
After months of silence, The Free Rock Trio released a music video for "Off the Wall" from Gone Wild on April 30, 2021. This was soon followed by the album's lead single, "Slow Emotion," on May 14, 2021. With the single, a music video and pre-orders for physical copies of the album were released. The album's artwork and tracklist were also revealed on this day.

Promotion for the album really kicked into gear with the release of the album's second single, "Ida (In the Hills)." Whereas "Slow Emotion" utilized a straightahead rock beat, "Ida" features a swung, laid back groove that pairs nicely with the track's Yes-inspired guitar riff. The track is also notable for its' bridge, which switches into a double-time punk groove and features lyrics sung from the perspective of Ida, the song's protagonist. "Ida" was released on June 4, 2021 alongside a music video depicting the trio attempting to make a music video in Boston, but Justin Siegel continually disrupts the process, resulting in Jacob Keplinger kicking him off set and completing the video with James Siegel alone. It is by far the most meta of the band's videos to date.

The third (and final) pre-release single by the band was July's "Noggin," an upbeat track that bears a resemblance to New Threads' 2019 track "Sunburn." It was released on July 2, 2021 alongside a music video that features frontman Jacob Keplinger in Joshua Tree National Park, California, hiking a rock mountain with his brother, Jackson.

On July 16, 2021 (also guitarist Jacob Keplinger's 23rd birthday), New Threads is Dead was released on all streaming services, and for the first time in PINK HAT® history, the physical CD was made available in stores, featuring two original artwork panels by Nick Burchard. Following the album's release, a number of tracks became fan-favorites including "Figure," "Fallacies," and "The Lowdown." Alongside the release, an album-length music video of the Trio performing each song was released on YouTube. Interestingly, the track sequence is slightly different in the music video compared to the actual LP- "Fallacies" and "No Más" are swapped.

On August 19, 2021, the music video for "Fallacies" premiered on the band's YouTube page. It was a direct collaboration between Pink Hat Studios and Tiny Viking Productions, the production company owned by Nick Burchard. Burchard directed the video, which depicts the band rehearsing for their first show post-Covid. In October, they would collaborate again on the "Noggin" music video.

Artwork + Free Rock tie-ins
The album's artwork is a custom digital drawing by Nick Burchard that features a number of easter eggs, both in reference to New Threads and The Free Rock Trio releases. A full list of easter eggs can be found in the Trivia section below. The primary visual on the cover, however, is a key scene in the Rock Anderson saga. After killing the "new threads" (the three young captains in the Threadsboro Mafia) in the New Threads track "Way Back Home" and spending the entirety of Free Rock on the run, Rock meets a member of the ancient Blind Men Brotherhood, dressed in a ragged pink robe and missing not only eyeballs, but eye sockets. The Blind Men are long protectors of the portal, which provides passage to the world of Guyamar. Rock and the Free Rock Trio split ways, with the trio returning to Threadsboro and Rock following the cultist into the caves of Womble. Inside, Rock comes face-to-face with the full Brotherhood, and trades the three severed heads for passage though the portal.

Various songs on this record continue the ever-expanding tale of Rock Anderson- "...is Dead," "No Más," "Fallacies," "Ida (In the Hills)," "The Lowdown," and "Turning Blue:""After passing through the portal at Space Jamaica, Rock awakens in a speeding 1977 Pontiac Trans Am, driving through a desert. He has no controls over the speed, brakes, or steering, and as a result crashes into a highway sign, knocking him unconscious ('...is Dead?'). Meanwhile, on the other side of the portal, the Free Rock trio returns to Threadsboro and begins to build a new town in its' place ('No Más'). Rock wakes up in the Trans Am, crashed into a sign for Fagen Street, which he can only assume is the lone highway through the purple desert ('Fallacies'). Rock follows this road by foot, and eventually meets a prostitute named Ida. She tells him that the world he's arrived in is Guyamar, and that there's a commune up the road a bit, where she's from, called The Hills ('Ida'). Ida takes Rock into The Hills, where he sees a variety of people and outcasts, some eating human flesh to survive ('The Lowdown'). Rock, mortified by The Hills, wants to leave, and returns to the Trans Am ('Turning Blue')."The band has noted the transitional nature of this album, both in lyrics and in principle. But with Rock now free in the eccentric world of Guyamar, guitarist Jacob Keplinger has promised that Rock's story is far from complete.

Tracklist
All songs written by Jacob Keplinger.


 * 1) ...is Dead? - 1:51
 * 2) Slow Emotion - 3:37
 * 3) No Más - 3:36
 * 4) Fallacies - 4:24
 * 5) Ida (In the Hills) - 4:20
 * 6) Figure - 2:40
 * 7) Noggin - 2:44
 * 8) The Lowdown - 4:36
 * 9) Turning Blue - 3:57

TOTAL TIME - 31:45

Credits
Jacob Keplinger - guitars, vocals, keys, mixing, mastering

Justin Siegel - drums, vocals

James Siegel - bass, vocals

Nick Burchard - front and back cover

Trivia

 * On the front cover, the four New Threads studio albums can be seen (from left to right: Felonious Wilma, Threadsboro, Death in the Afternoon, and NEW THREADS) as vinyl records.
 * On the back cover, the three Free Rock Trio studio albums can be seen (from left to right: Free Rock, Gone Wild, and Buford) as cassette tapes.
 * Several references to the Pink Hat lore are visible on the front and back cover as well, including the America guitar, a Schlitz globe, scattered Sudafed pills, a Bagman comic, Ida's phone number, a Bongo postcard, the Pink Hat skateboard, and a rat (visual metaphor for Rock's troubles in the track of the same name).
 * On the rear cover, the cracks in the broken glass form the message "FEAR KING BUFORD."
 * "Ida" started with the riff- when Jacob Keplinger thought of it, he recorded a voice memo, meaning to title it "Idea." He mistyped and wrote "Ida," and decided to base the song's lyrics off of it.
 * "Figure," the album's only track not written between October 2020 and March 2021, was written during the Felonious Wilma album cycle, around the same time as "Hardship."
 * The lyrics in "Turning Blue" ride a dual meaning. The first two verses (and choruses) are direct tie-ins to the Rock Anderson saga, but the third verse stands alone as a direct reference to the Townhouse era of New Threads: "Going back to the townhouse / Wait for Trevor Wright / We were living in the future / You could never try"
 * The album's opener "...is Dead?" features an ellipsis, a continuation of Gone Wild 's opening number "New Threads...,' together forming the title of the new LP.
 * "Fagen Street," the fictional street where most of "Fallacies" takes place, is a nod to Donald Fagen of Steely Dan, one of Keplinger's biggest influences as a writer.
 * The rear cover visualizes a key easter egg from the album's story: Rock's 1977 Pontiac Trans Am that he wakes up in following his travels through the portal. This is a direct reference to the second working title of New Threads' self-titled sophomore LP.
 * In the album-length music video, "Fallacies" and "No Más" are swapped in the track sequence.