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Mar 31, 2020 By Christopher Roberts Photography by Peter Ryle Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever

Melbourne, Australia five-piece Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever have announced a new album, Sideways to New Italy, and shared a new song from it, “She’s There,” via a video for the single. Sideways to New Italy is due out June 5 via Sub Pop. Check out the Nick McKinlay-directed “She’s There” video below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover art.

Sideways to New Italy is the band’s sophomore album and the follow-up to 2018’s debut album, Hope Downs, also released via Sub Pop. Hope Downs was our Album of the Week, one of our Top 100 Albums of 2018, and our #1 Debut Album of 2018.

Sideways to New Italy also includes “Cars In Space,” a new song the band shared in February via a video for the track co-directed by fellow Aussie musician Julia Jacklin with her regular collaborator Nick Mckk. “Cars In Space” was one of our Songs of the Week.

The band features singer/songwriter/guitarists Tom Russo, Joe White, and Fran Keaney, as well as bassist Joe Russo and drummer Marcel Tussie.

The album’s partial namesake, New Italy, is actually a village near New South Wales’ Northern Rivers, which is an area Tussie is from. A press release announcing the album describes the town: “A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it pit-stop of a place with fewer than 200 residents, it was founded by Venetian immigrants in the late-1800s and now serves as something of a living monument to Italians’ contribution to Australia, with replica Roman statues dotted like souvenirs on the otherwise rural landscape.”

Keaney had this to say about the album in the press release: “I wanted to write songs that I could use as some sort of bedrock of hopefulness to stand on, something to be proud of. A lot of the songs on the new record are reaching forward and trying to imagine an idyll of home and love.”

Of the “She’s There” video the band collectively had this to say: “We tried to convey that feeling in a dream where you need to be somewhere, and you don’t really know why, but you are determined to overcome every obstacle to get there.”

In February 2019 Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever shared a new song, “In the Capital” (it was one of our Songs of the Week) and released it as a 7-inch ia Sub Pop. The B-side, “Read My Mind,” was also shared in April 2019 via a video for the track (it was also one of our Songs of the Week). Neither song is featured on Sideways to New Italy.

Read our 2018 interview with Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever.

Sideways to New Italy Tracklist:

1. The Second of the First
2. Falling Thunder
3. She’s There
4. Beautiful Steven
5. The Only One
6. Cars In Space
7. Cameo
8. Not Tonight
9. Sunglasses At the Wedding
10. The Cool Change

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