Pitchfork: Shipping News to Release New LP, Tour

You know, from the outside it may seem like fun and games here at Pitchfork, but let us pause for a moment of pretentious, self-reflective metaphor: It's a cruel world, and we're all alone. We're lost at sea, compasses cracked. Our only consolation is the obscured reflection that follows us through the majestic, volatile, uncharted waters.

The Shipping News are just that kind of mirror for our fanboy ennui. Featuring former members of Rodan, June of 44, Endpoint, and Rachel's (yes, the apostrophe belongs there...maybe now you see what we're getting at), their songs ebb and flow with a disquieting grandiosity that few other bands have mastered, beginning with the 1997 masterpiece Save Everything and extending to 2000's Very Soon, and in Pleasant Company. On March 22, Quarterstick Records will be releasing The Shipping News' third album, titled Flies the Fields. That's really soon, but in case you can't wait, the first song, "Axons and Dendrites", has been posted on the newly renovated (and rather handsome) Touch and Go website. Tracklist:

01 Axons and Dendrites
02 Louven
03 (Morarys or) Demon
04 It's Not Too Late
05 Sheets and Cylinders
06 The Human Face
07 Untitled w/ Drums
08 Paper Lanterns (Zero Return)

The band has also scheduled a tour through the east coast and midwest, with the expressed possibility of West Coast/European additions later. And now, morebrooding:

04-14 Knoxville, TN - Pilot Light
04-15 Athens, GA - Caledonia Lounge
04-16 Atlanta, GA - The Earl
04-17 Raleigh, NC - Martin St. Music Hall
04-19 Baltimore, MD - Ottobar
04-21 Brooklyn, NY - North Six
04-23 Boston, MA - Great Scott
04-25 Montreal, Quebec - La Sala Rosa
04-28 Newport, KY - Southgate House
04-29 Chicago, IL - Schuba's
04-30 Louisville, KY - Headliners