Hot on the tail of their debut album Awake In Slumberland, 2008 is shaping up to be a busy year for Melbourne experimental punk band The Time Of The Assassins.
The album received its official international release through Kiddiepunk Records on the first day of the New Year and has already attracted the attention of audiences and critics from around the world.
The Time Of The Assassins are now heading overseas on their first USA tour playing some 16 odd shows throughout California, New York and New Jersey. The tour kicks off on April 25th in Highland Park and continues through to June in New York, before the band head over to Europe and the UK.
Awake In Slumberland was recorded in Chicago by Steve Albini and mastered by John Golden in California. The result is a hypnotic, genre-transgressing work of beauty, honesty and ferocity.
In recent press, the music of The Time Of The Assassins, has been described as a "potent slab of angular post-punk venom" (Rave Magazine, Brisbane) and it has been said that the band "combine punk with experimental rock and execute it in a breathtaking burst of raw power" (Beat Magazine, Melbourne).
Awake In Slumberland has already been recognized as "some of the most elegantly visceral, densely minimalist and violently beautiful music of recent years" (Nick Hudson, UK based, music critic for TransformOnline), with "mood swings and simmering rage" (Wilfred Brandt, twothousand.com), " …A sensational debut album filled with intricate winding rock songs. Any band brave enough to take this many risks deserves plenty of accolades. This album's a total standout" (Michael Atkin, Blunt Magazine).
In February '08 Sydney's Brag Magazine labeled Awake In Slumberland the 'Album of the Week' entitling it "the devil's soundtrack" and praising its' "potent fury" (Dom Alessio, Brag Magazine).
The album combines the band's penchant for slow, repetitive trance music, like epic track The Return, the sprawling Mad A and the instrumental The Double. Throw into the mix the apocalyptic post-punk of Bones and 70 Days & 70 Nights, with more experimental numbers like the tribal The Valley Of The Kings, the war-opera battle call Prayer and the pounding electricity of Math, and Awake In Slumberland comes off more like a strange journey through a dark underworld than a modern rock record.
Awake In Slumberland is a landscape populated by ghosts, mythology, intoxication, madness, electricity and ultimately a dark beauty that permeates every note, building slowly to a frenzied climax and then releasing, leaving the listener in an altered, almost disorientated state.
The Time Of The Assassins' commitment to appealing to a deeper part of people's nature, and giving people something they can really take away with them, both live and recorded, has led them to develop a reputation as a band to be reckoned with.
Awake In Slumberland Tour - USA Dates
Apr 25 - Mr T's Bowl - Highland Park, CA
Apr 30 - Que Sera - Long Beach, CA
May 01 - The Knitting Factory - Hollywood, CA
May 05 - Dipiazza - Long Beach, CA
May 15 - The Roxy Theatre - West Hollywood, CA
May 18 - Angels Road House - Yucaipa / Apple Valley, CA
May 25 - Luna Lounge - Brooklyn, NY
May 26 - Trash Bar - Brooklyn, NY
May 28 - Asbury Lanes - Asbury Park, NJ
May 29 - Rock Star Bar - Brooklyn, NY
May 30 - Lit Lounge - New York, NY
Plus More TBA
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