Folk Rock Quartet The Farewell Drifters Announce New Album

Folk rock quartet the Farewell Drifters have announced their long-awaited album Tomorrow Forever, set for release on January 28th on their new label home Compass Records. To help them accentuate the pop sensibilities of their music, they enlisted roots pop producer Neilson Hubbard (Matthew Perryman Jones, the Apache Relay), whose production enhanced the band's signature harmonies and acoustic foundation with gutsy electric guitar and orchestral-style drums, resulting in the band's strongest effort to date. The Farewell Drifters will tour heavily throughout January and February in support of the release, including album release shows in New York City, Atlanta, at Folk Alliance, and SXSW. Click here for a full list of tour dates. 

The Farewell Drifters acoustic instrumentation and anthemic songwriting places them squarely in the midst of what's bound to go down in the annals of popular music history as an era-defining, youthful folk-rock boom. But, although they share significant common ground with their folk-rock brethren the Avett Brothers and Mumford & Sons, the Drifters aren't content simply to stomp, strum and sing with gusto. They bring a unique Brian Wilson-like sensibility to the movement, with intricately arranged harmonies and atmospheric, string-swathed studio shading all of which is showcased on Tomorrow Forever. 

When Zach Bevill, brothers Joshua and Clayton Britt and Dean Marold started making music together eight years ago, they aimed for the sweet spot between bluegrass and the Beach Boys' artfully crafted, '60s studio pop.  "All the production on Pet Sounds really was very influential - it was a matter of finding the perfect note for the perfect place, everything has a purpose and is highly thought out," says Zach, the band's formally trained lead singer and rhythm guitarist. That same sense of intentionality is present in the band's songwriting as well. "The feeling came before the sound as we were writing," adds songwriter and mandolinist Josh Britt. "And that's what guides every song - honest self-expression and trying to make sure every detail serves that. It is what we as people respond to in music and it makes Tomorrow Forever a really personal record."

Lyrically the new album strives to acknowledge the specter of failure without being paralyzed by it.  "We're sort of restless people," Zach offers. "Maybe everybody's restless. We're always aspiring to something. We're always in pursuit of something. If we don't believe that whatever that is, is good and true, then we've got nothing."  Josh, a self-described extreme introvert, concurs, "Without hope, I would give up. I would not be in relationships, because they're hard. I would not go out; I would just stay home. There's a pursuit of something there that's powerful enough for me to keep putting myself out there."

And when you get right down to it, putting themselves out there is exactly how the Farewell Drifters and their earnest kindred spirits throughout the folk-rock scene harness music's power to unite fans around common desires. The Drifters also have something singular to offer: a sound that's as richly layered as the emotional landscape it portrays, and catchy besides."I feel like we're on the same trajectory we've always been on," says Zach, "but now it feels like there's a much larger audience out there that digs the kind of music that we're making. And that gives me a lot of hope for this album."

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