In partnership with
Every headline satisfies an opinion. Except ours.
Remember when the news was about what happened, not how to feel about it? 1440's Daily Digest is bringing that back. Every morning, they sift through 100+ sources to deliver a concise, unbiased briefing — no pundits, no paywalls, no politics. Just the facts, all in five minutes. For free.
THE SONIC ROAD PODCAST NEWSLETTER
The stuff that doesn't make it to YouTube.
What's up everybody — Beau here.
Episode 40 is Mr. Bison, and I'll be honest, I came to this one late. I was driving back to Ohio from Maryland after a weekend jam session with friends, and I put on their last record, Echoes From the Universe, for the drive. Five and a half hours, three times through, and I couldn't turn it off. That's usually the sign for me — a record that takes a couple of listens to fully land is almost always the one that's actually doing something. So I reached out.
The new album is The Garden of Forgotten Dreams, out September 25th on Heavy Psych Sounds, and the full episode drops this week on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. You already know how this works — you get it here first.
Here is the full episode before anyone else: https://videos.thesonicroad.com/video/6Sydsm_7kXu
Quick background if you're new to the band, like I was a few weeks ago: Mr. Bison formed in 2009 in Cecina, a small coastal town in Tuscany. Their first two records were made without a bass player at all — the position opened up after a year, and rather than replace it, the band ran a two-guitar setup, with one guitar split through a bass octave pedal to fake the low end.
It's a trick that's had a moment in rock over the last couple decades, and for a band leaning on Clutch and Fu Manchu-style riffing early on, it worked. About a decade ago the lineup shifted again, this time bringing in members with different musical backgrounds and a real bass player, and that's the version of the band that made Holy Oak in 2018 — the record that pushed them out of straight stoner rock and into the heavier, more progressive, more psychedelic territory they work in now, in the same neighborhood as bands like Elder.