New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Fronted by their gospel-trained powerhouse frontwoman A.J. Haynes, Shreveport, Louisiana soulpunx Seratones release their much-lauded second album, POWER, today on New West Records.
The band have already released a string of massive singles from the record including 'Power', 'Gotta Get To Know Ya' and 'Sadboi', earning airplay from BBC6 Music, BBC
Radio Wales and
Radio X, and praise from The New York Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, NYLON, Billboard, R2 Magazine, Echoes Magazine, Scootering Magazine and many more.
Today, they release gripping album opener and latest single 'Fear', a track that artfully sets the table for an album all about the day-to-day beauty and horror of modern life.
Eloquent as ever, vocalist A.J. Haynes says of the new single, "Fear is the weight of the world coming down with no love in return. Being an artist has afforded privileges and experiences that I never want to take for granted. Even when I feel like I'm jumping from the frying pan to the crucible to the fire, I strive to express my gratitude through song. I want to be resilient, to feel strong. And then…just when I think I have a handle on my Psyche, Fear saunters in."
"Will I be steel or smoke? Are my motives truly altruistic? Am I doing enough? Is this all worth the near-constant state of nauseating uncertainty? Am I always going to be a woman in-transit, displaced? Where am I going? Where have I been? The first time I heard a finished arrangement of this song, I cried. Perhaps there is something in this song I needed to confess to myself."
"Every time I listen to Doo-Wop, I feel like I'm eight years old again, dancing in the kitchen with my mama. I don't get to dance with her anymore. This remembrance is always gilded in an inescapable Fear of leaving loved ones behind in this realm or the next. In the words of Audre Lorde, I am listening to what fear teaches. I will never be gone. I am a scar, a report from the frontlines, a talisman, a resurrection. A rough place on the chin of complacency."
The quintet recently announced an extensive run of international tour dates including their only currently scheduled UK headline performance at The Camden Assembly, London on 21st November 2019 (see below for full listings).
POWER is out now on New West Records
SERATONES international tour dates:
8/22 - Dallas, TX @ Three Links
8/23 - Austin, TX @ Stubb's Jr.
8/24 - El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace
8/26 - Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar
8/27 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo
8/29 - San Francisco, CA @ Cafe Du Nord
8/31 - McMinnville, OR @ Walnut City
Music Festival
9/1 - Portland, OR @ Bunk Bar
9/3 - Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern
9/6 - Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
9/7 - Chicago, IL @ The Empty Bottle
9/9 - Toronto, ON @ The
Drake Hotel
9/10 - Montreal, QC @ Quai Des Brumes
9/11 - North Adams, MA @ Hi Lo
9/12 - Allston, MA @ Great Scott
9/13 - Brooklyn, NY @ Baby's All Right
9/14 - Washington, D.C. @
Pearl Street Warehouse
9/15 - Carrboro, NC @ Cat's Cradle
9/18 - Nashville, TN @ The High Watt
9/19 - Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
9/20 - Birmingham, AL @ The Nick
9/21 - New Orleans, LA @ One Eyed Jack's
10/25-10/27 - New Orleans, LA @ Voodoo Festival
11/21 - London, UK @ The Camden Assembly
11/22 - Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Cinetol
11/23 - Hamburg, Germany @ Molotow Musikclub
11/25 - Berlin, Germany @ Maze
11/26 - Koln, Germany @ Helios 37
11/28 - Antwerpen - Merksem, Belgium @ Arenbergschouwburg
11/29 - Paris, France @ Le Pop-Up du Label
11/30 - Clermont-ferrand, France @ Cooperative De Mai
12/3 - Zurich, Switzerland @ Mascotte
12/5 - Madrid, Spain @ Wurlitzer Ballroom
12/6 - Valencia, Spain @ sala Loco Club
Seratones are:
A.J. Haynes (vocals/guitar)
Jesse Gabriel (drums)
Adam Davis (bass)
Travis Stewart (guitar)
Tyran Coker (keyboard)
More about POWER:
Seratones released their critically-acclaimed debut album in 2016, leading to a national television debut on CBS This Morning, an NPR
Music Tiny Desk concert, as well as tours with the likes of Charles Bradley, St. Paul & The Broken Bones, Thao & The Get Down Stay Down,
Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, and more.
Now the band release POWER, their first new album in 3+ years, first featuring a new member line-up, first record with New West and first record produced by Cage The Elephant's Bradley Shultz. On this record, Haynes showcases how vulnerability can be powerful, as her songs explore her years fighting for reproductive rights and serving as a counselor at one of Louisiana's last remaining abortion providers, her advocacy for racial equality, her struggles to adapt and overcome, her love of poetry, and much more.
One listen to Seratones' spectacular sophomore album and it's clear just how much of an evolution has taken place. Recorded in Nashville at
Battle Tapes, POWER finds the Shreveport five-piece trading in the brash proto-punk and garage rock ferocity of their critically acclaimed debut for a timeless brand of gritty soul, one that takes its cues from vintage Motown and Stax even as it flirts with modern synthesizers and experimental arrangements.
"With this album, I knew that I really wanted to draw from the pantheon of soul music," says Haynes. "Soul was what I danced to in the kitchen with my mother. It's what I'd come home at night and listen to on my record player. Things are really heightened and scary and overwhelming in this country right now, and returning to soul music was a way of reaching for comfort and security in all of that."
Haynes' captivating voice, first honed at Brownsville Baptist Church in Louisiana, remains front and center here, but her delivery this time around is more measured and self-assured than ever before, a beacon of confidence and clarity amidst a sea of social and political turmoil.
