Balto's last record was 2012's Monuments, while 2014 saw the band solidify its five-piece, Americana- and psych-tinged rock and roll lineup. Now with a steady footing, Balto is ready to release their next batch of songs: Call It By Its Name.
Stocked in two forms, July 7 will see the release of a seven-inch vinyl featuring two tracks as well as a digital release with three—both of which will include "Saints & Crows" (listen below). Plus, the guys will celebrate the occasion at The Secret Society on Saturday, July 11, presented by Vortex.
"We tracked and mixed the songs with Tim Shrout at Flora Recording & Playback in 2014," says frontman Dan Sheron, and they are "indicative of the direction the band's sound has gone over the past year."
And just this past April, Balto recorded another song with Shrout behind the board: a live rendition of the Monuments track "Gravestones," performed live at Marmoset HQ in SE Portland (where Shrout also works as a producer).
"The arrangement of the song is a totally new reimagining of the song, which was actually the first song I wrote after moving to PDX in 2011," Sheron recalls. "There are so many stories crammed into this song: my propensity for holding onto letters, holding onto the past, keeping track of little anniversaries of events as the years go by..."
Filmed by friends, "Shrout engineered the session all live and raw in the room," Sheron says. "Whatever we got in that moment was what we got"—and it's a beaut.
