Hiss Golden Messenger - Heart Like A Levee (Deluxe Edition) (2016)

M.C. Taylor has announced his return as Hiss Golden Messenger. The Americana songwriter will release his latest album, Heart Like a Levee, on October 7th via Merge Records.
The new LP follows one of 2014’s best albums, Lateness of Dancers. Taylor produced the album himself alongside bassist Bradley Cook, saying that it was written “during a time of transition and doubt.” The result is a collection of songs that are “raw, but also joyous… Life is simultaneously happy and sad at once and that’s how I want my records to feel. I think that’s how Hear Like a Levee feels.” Helping him create that feeling were pianist Phil Cook (Megafaun), drummer Matt McCaughan (Bon Iver), backup singers Tift Merritt and Alexandra Sauser-Monning (Mountain Man), and horn section Matt Douglas and Michael Lewis.
As a taste of this bittersweet record, Hiss Golden Messenger has shared the lead single “Biloxi”. There’s certainly an air of faded longing in the strumming guitars, and the chorus itself is a perfect encapsulation of this emotional juxtaposition: “It’s hard, Lord/ Lord, it’s hard,” Taylor sings. “Oh everybody in the whole damn place just gotta have a good time.”
Take a listen to the track above. Pre-orders for Heart Like a Levee are going on now, with deluxe versions coming with a bonus album dubbed Vestapol. The eight-song companion is described as “an intimate collection of eight previously unreleased tracks” that Taylor wrote while working on Heart Like a Levee, except these were recorded in motels and in his own home in Durham, North Carolina.
Find each album’s tracklist and album art below.