Clay Rendering release their new album, California Black Vows, via Hospital Productions. The follow up to 2015’s Snowthorn, the new album sees a change not only in the band's music output, but an environmental change (relocated from the suburbs of the Midwest to the sinister shine of Los Angeles) as well as a lineup change - moving from a duo to a quartet. Mike and Tara Connelly have enlisted Sera Timms of Black Mare on bass and Joe Potts of Sollilja on drums...

California Black Vows is an album that's steeped in heavy rock, but it's also part film score ('Black Vows') and part fantasy music ('We Wait', 'Take Hold')... not to mention a little '80s new romantic ('Cities of the World') thrown in for good measure.

Overall, this is a wonderfully diverse and engaging release. It's certainly not one you'll tire of quickly. And for those of us of a certain age, this pretty much sums up the scene of our youth.

It's a well thought out and perfectly presented release that is pretty much timeless.

8

Nick Smithson