Sleeveens Tour Dates
Excited to announce the initial round of tour dates for The Sleeveens 2024 world takeover! More in the works!
Personality Cult “Dilated” Out May 2nd! Preorder here: https://bit.ly/4i94Qqj
Introducing…..The Sleeveens
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, please give a warm Dirtnap welcome to The Sleeveens!
We here at Dirtnap were IMMEDIATELY bowled over when this unknown-to-us band sent in their album to us for consideration! We dispatched our crack A&R team to Tennessee, and following a high level summit meeting, we’re ecstatic to announce that The Sleeveens have joined the illustrious ranks of the Dirtnap family of bands!
The Sleeveens (an informal Irish term for someone who is underhanded, sly or a bit of a trickster) hit exactly at the intersection of high energy pub rock and classic ’77 punk (with some modern flourishes sprinkled in), with hooks for MILES, and great lyrics that are more thoughtful and original than many in this style of music.
Existing for less than a year, this Nashville/Dublin band has hit the ground running, releasing a 7″ and going on an extensive tour within a few months of forming, recording a full length, getting picked up for Dirtnap, and booking ANOTHER big tour for early 2024!
February 9th will see the release of their debut, self titled LP on Dirtnap. The first 200 will be on yellow vinyl (black vinyl also available), and will only be available via mailorder through Green Noise Records.
Preorder your copy HERE.
We’ll have music from the album to share soon, in the meantime, check out their debut 7″ (released as Stef And The Sleeveens on Sweet Time Records) HERE.
Keep your eyes open for track premieres, tour dates, and lots more! 2024 will be the year of The Sleeveens!
O-D-EX “Breaker”
Fort Worth’s O-D-EX has joined the Dirtnap roster, and we are happy to announce that their debut LP, “Breaker” will be released on January 26th!
This will be a one time only pressing of 500, with 300 on black vinyl and 200 on white. White vinyl will be exclusively available through our friends at Green Noise Records.
Preorder your copy here! By preordering, you’ll automatically be entered to win a copy of a test pressing of the LP! (edition of 5)
Direct Hit / Decent Criminal Split 7″ and Beacon Comic #1
OUT NOW! ORDER HERE: https://bit.ly/3FDGfZT
On April 28th, Dirtnap Records will publish the first installment of Beacon Comics, packaged with a 7″ record featuring a taste of Direct Hit‘s (Milwaukee, Fat Wreck Chords) dubiously-forthcoming album (“Wasteland”), and new Decent Criminal (Santa Rosa, Diised/Gunner Records) songs “Time” and “Dream” – each an alternate take, and a B-side off their forthcoming album, respectively.
At some point during quarantine – with an album of new material shelved, and a month-long European tour all but canceled – Direct Hit singer/songwriter Nick Woods found himself working on a story about the future.
‘I’d get on video calls with my friends Dylan [Brown] and Jenny [Lapham], and we’d joke about being locked up with nothing to do – just like everyone else was,’ he says. ‘At some point, I got it into my head that this was all training for some kind of future where virtual reality would be the only way to experience the universe. And since I had nothing else to do at the time, I figured I’d start writing some of that stuff down.’
Together, Nick, Dylan, and Jenny – along with long-time Direct Hit collaborator and illustrator Walker Dubois – pieced together the first half of BEACON from Woods’s notes, producing a science fiction comic about a person named Doro, and their robot caretaker Partner, as civilization is reborn from apocalypse.
“Wasteland” was a tune I wrote and recorded by myself in a couple hours in June of 2020, a couple months after we canceled all our scheduled shows, and right around when I admitted to myself that I wasn’t gonna be able to be in a full-time band for a while,’ Woods says. ‘This was also right after when George Floyd was killed by the Minneapolis police. So I was angry, and depressed, and embarrassed, and felt like I had to do something to express that mindset, and show some solidarity. The original version is really nasty-sounding – this one is too, but a lot more listenable. And Dylan, Jenny, Walker and I had the first part of this book lying around. So we figured it was good a time as any to try something far-out, with a label that wasn’t scared to experiment.”
This lavishly packaged comic/7” combo is a one time only pressing of 500 (300 on black, 100 on red, 100 on blue) and will only be available for a limited time. Get yours today!
Listen To Direct Hit’s “Wasteland” HERE
Martha “Please Don’t Take Me Back” LP/CD Out Now!
STREAM/DOWNLOAD on Bandcamp
Durham indiepop-punks Martha return with their fourth album, and it
might just be their best one yet. With their endlessly radiant hooks
dialled up to maximum setting, paired with another heart-rending and
relatable lyric sheet that reflects on the universal scars of the
pandemic years, Please Don’t Take Me Back is the work of a band in the
form of their life. It’s also an instant classic – one that’s both
smartly prescient and warmly addictive.
Recorded at Nottingham’s JT Soar by ‘Bad’ Phil Booth (The Cool
Greenhouse, Rattle, Grey Hairs), Please Don’t Take Me Back is a timely
collection of deliciously catchy pop songs about ‘resisting the
feeling that the good days are behind us’.
Two things set these songs apart. Firstly, the sense of resolution the
band provide by working through these fears to find what positivity
they can – making this the go-to record for your ongoing existential
crisis in 2022. Secondly, there’s the effortless brilliance which
ensures every melody cements itself to your memory from the very first
listen – album closer “You Can’t Have A Good Time All Of The Time” might
be their breeziest singalong moment yet, all wrapped up in a song
about the planet’s ongoing environmental catastrophe. You’ll hear
echoes of The Housemartins, The Weakerthans, Cheap Trick and Heavenly
in their sound, but ultimately it sounds like Martha found a way to
turn their strongest features all the way to 11. What better way to
process the aftermath of the past two years?
While their previous record – 2019’s Love Keeps Kicking – saw them
remaining defiant in a world that seemed to be breaking apart, Please
Don’t Take Me Back explores the scattered fragments of what followed
and tries to make sense of how we navigate the smoking remains.
First formed in the small village of Pity Me, Durham, in 2011, Martha
released their debut EP the following year on guitarist Jonathan
Cairns’ DIY label, Discount Horse. Tours on both sides of the Atlantic
soon followed, along with two albums for the UK’s much-missed indiepop
stable Fortuna Pop: 2014’s Courting Strong (also released in the
United States by Salinas Records) and 2016’s sophomore effort Blisters
In The Pit of My Heart (via Dirtnap Records in the US). In the
meantime, the band became figureheads for the UK’s DIY pop scene by
balancing their obvious talents with a clear set of ethics –
anti-capitalist, first and foremost – and an open-hearted warmth
that’s often absent from the foreground of punk rock.
Please Don’t Take Me Back is a fine addition to Martha’s discography;
their most life-affirming yet and a welcome ripple of light at a time
when it’s often difficult to see past the darkness. Listen and love:
the beat perpetual drives on.
TRACK LIST:
1. Beat, Perpetual
2 Hope Gets Harder
3. Please Don’t Take Me Back
4. Irreversible Motion
5. Baby, Does Your Heart Sink?
6. FLAG//BURNER
7. Neon Lung
8. Take Me Back To The Old Days (Reprise)
9. Total Cancellation Of The Future
10. I Didn’t Come Here To Surrender
11. You Can’t Have A Good Time All Of The Time
Outside North America? Order from Specialist Subject Records (UK)
