Canadian duo The Harpoonist & The Axe Murderer will return to the UK in September for a run of shows in support of their 'Apocalipstick' release due October 13th via Tonic Records. Earlier this year the boys opened for St Paul & The Broken Bones in London and are now returning for headline shows. So with a Harpoonist and an Axe Murderer visiting the UK it might be time to run and hide but a better idea would be to check out the live shows (and how do you hide a Whale anyway?). More about the duo, their upcoming album and those tour dates follow:

“There once was an era when records were made in castles, abandoned airplane hangars, barns, or on a yacht off the coast of the Bahamas, its passengers as high as paper kites. This is not that record! It is an album that came together from the desire for companionship, the endless pursuit of tone, the strength and glue of family, and above all, the love and admiration for each other’s skills. Whether it was operating a tape machine with Jedi precision, creating meals that fuelled us, or belting out glass shattering ohs and ahs, it was the elbow grease of many individuals that brought this project to life”

— The Harpoonist & The Axe Murderer

Tour Dates:

16.09.17 BRISTOL Louisiana

17.09.17 LEEDS Brudenell Social Club

19.09.17 LONDON Borderline

Armed with a sack of harmonicas, a mess of foot percussion and a road-worn Telecaster, Shawn Hall (The Harpoonist) and Matthew Rogers (The Axe Murderer) kick out raw and primal blues while electrifying the genre with a lightning bolt of new life. Hall and Rogers limit their sound to whatever they can play between them, using only their mouths, hands and feet. Hall provides soul-tinged vocals and blues harmonica, while Rogers simultaneously lets rip on guitar and foot percussion.

These days it feels like our world is on the verge of collapse. But it’s with near-end times in the breeze that we plunge deeper into the pleasures of sex, revelry and entertainment. ‘Apocalipstick’ begins with the doom-laden warning call of ‘Get Ready’ (to be released as a UK single). Set to a contrastingly bouncy drumbeat, Shawn Hall alerts us to “Get ready for the hard times / Get ready for the heavy load/ Get ready for the who knows what”. “Ben Rogers [guest vocalist] first sang ‘Get Ready’ to us by the piano in the basement of my home,” says Hall. “It was instantly familiar to us and embodied this loose campfire-like group vocal thing, which carried right into the recording sessions. The beauty of this song is the impression of hopefulness it leaves you while layered in a bed of chaos.” With the fate of the world certainly in question, ‘Apocalipstick’ delves into lustful begging with ‘Pretty Please’, summons complete heartbreak in ‘Treat Me Kind’, while ‘Nancy’ and ‘Forever Fool’ touch on themes of bullying and revenge.

Framed by psychedelic landscapes and world-ending jam-outs, The Harpoonist & The Axe Murderer ignite the gritty, blues-rock grooves they have been acclaimed for by adding drummer John Raham (The Be Good Tanyas) and keyboardist Geoff Hilhorst (The Deep Dark Woods) into the melting pot as well as the golden voices of Dawn Pemberton, Andrina Turenne, Alexa Dirks (Begonia), Ben Rogers, Khari Wendell McClelland, Erik Nielsen and Ricardo Khayatte. Add equal parts soulful, sweaty vocals and biting guitar and you have an album perfect for any doomsday date-night.

‘Apocalipstick’ is the follow up to 2014’s ‘A Real Fine Mess’, which received considerable recognition in their home territory for the Vancouver, Canada based duo of Hall and Rogers. This included a ‘Blues Album of the Year’ Juno nomination (2014) and wins for ‘Blues Album of the Year’ and ‘Alternative Album of the Year’ at the WCMA’s (2015). Their previous release, ‘Checkered Past’, also won them the ‘Blues Act of the Year’ gong at the SiriumXM Indies (2013). They have had songs featured on television shows such as: ‘CSI’, ‘NCIS: New Orleans’, ‘Bitten’, ‘Killjoys’, ‘The Good Wife’, ‘Blue Bloods’ and the aptly named TV movie ‘Lizzie Borden Took An Axe’.

‘APOCALIPSTICK'

TRACKLISTING

1 Get Ready

2 Nancy

3 Forever Fool

4 I’m Back

5 Pretty Please

6 Treat Me Kind

7 Running

8 Promises, Promises

9 Save Me From Another Day

10 Marianne (20,000 Acres Of Moonlight)

11 Father’s Son

12 Fragile

13 Situate Yourself

Produced by TH&TAM with John Rahem and mastered by Brian Lucey’s Magic Garden (The Black Keys, Arctic Monkeys, Dr. Dog, Lucinda Williams, The Shins).

harpoonistaxemurderer.com