Blitzen Trapper’s highly anticipated new album, Holy Smokes Future Jokes, is out today! Buy/stream the album here.   

Led by existential questions about life and death, Holy Smokes Future Jokes finds frontman/lyricist Eric Earley ruminating on the intermediate period between a person’s separate lives on earth, “and what it means to escape the cycle of birth and rebirth,” he explains.  

The album was included in NPR’s New Music Friday notable releases for September 25, and has garnered critical acclaim:   

“… their finest since 2010’s Destroyer of the Void – sees them concentrating on what they do best: songs that sound like The Beatles at Big Pink, songs that sound like Dylan gone power pop.”  

– MOJO (4/5 Album Rating)

“Seventeen years since its eponymous debut, Blitzen Trapper remains an innovative band well-versed on the Americana playbook, still offering distinct contributions.”  

–No Depression

Previously released album tracks include: “Magical Thinking,” which premiered at SPIN, who noted that it “features the delicate alt-folk that has become synonymous with the group”:

“Masonic Temple Microdose #1” premiered at Consequence of Sound. Read more about the Origins of the song:

Brooklyn Vegan premiered the video for “Dead Billie Jean,” noting “the title star of Michael Jackson’s 1983 hit — not to mention a few dead rock stars — into the heady psychedelic universe of this album”:

Additionally, FLOOD premiered “Requiem” touting “the group uses country music as a vessel for persistence through difficult times” and The Bluegrass Situation premiered “Hazy Morning.”

Recorded at Long Play Recording in Portland, OR, Holy Smokes Future Jokes takes the listener on a wild and dramatic journey through the Bardo, that transitional state between death and rebirth. With an inherent otherworldliness in the lyrics and imagery, the album’s ten songs take inspiration from several works, notably George Saunders’ 2017 Lincoln in the Bardo, which led to Bardo Thodol, more commonly known as the Tibetan Book of the Dead.  

Produced and engineered by Raymond Richards, who also contributes upright bass/keys/pedal steel, Blitzen Trapper was joined in-studio by Michael Blake (keys), Luke Price (fiddle), Ben Latimer (saxophone), Heather Woods Broderick (backing vocals), and Haley Johnsen (backing vocals).

Find the indie exclusive LP on limited edition red, yellow and blue splatter vinyl at your favorite indie record store while supplies last!

Tags: Blitzen Trapper, Holy Smokes Future Jokes, New Release