WESTING - Future LP

"While still firmly Zeppelinesque in nature, Westing emerges from the ashes of Slow Season with a heavy cosmic boogie steeped in gritty western analog and pulsing with psychedelia."

Late 2021, Slow Season announced they’d become Westing, and that Ben McLeod (also of All Them Witches) was now on lead guitar alongside guitarist/vocalist Daniel Story Rice, bassist Hayden Doyel and drummer / engineer Cody Tarbell.

Their new LP is not coincidentally titled. Says Rice, ‘We wanted to hit the reset button on things and so we included a new band name to that list. We first met Ben in 2014 opening for All Them Witches in San Diego, and we did that again in 2016 and he and Cody corresponded about tape machines, music production, and other similar nerd stuff. We started swapping a few ideas early in 2021 and then flew him out for four days in August 2021. We got Future mostly down in that short span and did some remote stuff for overdubs, but nothing major. Obviously, our creative processes jelled pretty well to allow for such an efficiently productive session.’

For about ten years, the Visalia, California, outfit wandered the earth representing a new generational interpretation of classic heavy rock. The tones, warm. The melodies, sweet. The boogie, infectious. They went to ground after supporting their 2016 self-titled third album, and clearly it was time for something different.

“Is Future the future? Hell, we should be so lucky. What Westing manifest in these songs is schooled in the rock of yore and theirs purely, and in that, Future looks forward with the benefit of the lessons learned across three prior full-lengths (and the accompanying tours) while offering the kind of freshness that comes with a debut. No, they’re not the same kids who released Mountains in 2014, and the tradeoff is being able to convey maturity, evolving creativity and stage-born dynamic on Future without sacrificing the spirit and passion that has underscored their work all along.” – JJ Koczan