Chris Robinson Brotherhood has officially released their latest studio album, Servants of the Sun, via Silver Arrow Records.
The new record marks the band’s sixth full-length release since their formation in 2011. While previous CRB records have taken a more exploratory, studio-centric approach, Servants of the Sun is “their most direct, bare bones, rock and roll offering since debut companion albums Big Moon Ritual and The Magic Door.”
As Chris Robinson explained in a press release, “I let my head go to a Saturday night at The Fillmore, and said, ‘what’s the best set we could play?’ The record was conceived from that starting point. With our last couple of albums we made songs we knew we probably weren’t going to play live. This time around every one of these songs will fall into the live repertoire.”
“The best thing about the CRB after all this time is that no matter what we’re going through, when there’s a new piece of music that everyone is interested in, the entire band gets in there and goes for it,” continues Robinson.
The album captures Robinson and company hurtling between the fire and mania of Saturday night and the bruises and rain-on-the-bus-window reflection of the cold Sunday morning dawn. As the initial Servants of the Sun announcement notes, “Beyond the bullet holes, red-eyed angry angels, alchemy, praying mantises, hangovers, and all other manner of cosmic debris gone lyrically airborne—love is lost, new love is found, relationships are bent and broken by distance and time or by unrelenting proximity and timelessness. All the while, the line between autobiography and psychedelic fantasy is completely blurred.”
“I like to write ‘scenes.’ I want you to be able to storyboard these lyrics into a visual, even the abstract part of them,” says Robinson. “We’re creating a world and we want people to come in. We’re doing it through language and this texture of music and melody. Sometimes it’s a celebration, sometimes it’s mourning. It can be anything once you get inside.”
Stream Chris Robinson Brotherhood’s Servants of the Sun in its entirety below:
The Chris Robinson Brotherhood – Servants of the Sun – Full Album
For a list of the Chris Robinson Brotherhood’s upcoming tour dates, head to the band website here.