Breaks In The Sun

It’s uncommon for a contemporary artist to create a timeless album, an album that is both surprising and comforting. Yet after only a few listens to the new record from WEINLAND, a soon to be well known quintet from Portland, Oregon, you’ll know it’s still possible. Their achievement is celebrated on Breaks In The Sun, the follow up to 2008’s critically acclaimed La Lamentor (Badman Recording Co.), and the manner in which they wrote and recorded this collective work.

Principal songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Adam Shearer explains: “We recognized the ‘70s-ness of our choice to book and arrive for studio time without a single completed song... and we embraced it.” Working with close friend Adam Selzer (M. Ward, Norfolk & Western) and Badman label head Dylan Magierek at Type Foundry Studios for two weeks without a break, sometimes as many as 16 hours a day, Breaks In The Sun was committed to 2 tape amidst sleep deprivation, whiskey consumption, and trust. The result is a collection of songs full of intimacy and excitement.

There’s something magical about the way a new song sounds the first time you play it. That’s a feeling we’re always trying to recreate, says mandolin, honeyed pedal steel, piano, melodic low end, and subtle percussive minutiae. The subjects tribulations find them navigating broken trust, love, lust, poverty, and addiction, but they’re safe, warm, introspective, and respectful of the experience. As such, Breaks In The Sun is the most optimistic batch of songs Shearer has written to date.