The Blips‘ self-titled album will be available on vinyl, CD, and digital/streaming platforms on 9 April via Cornelius Chapel Records. The group consists of five frontmen, including Will Stewart, who has released music under his own name and with the Birmingham, Alabama group Timber. Stewart sent a few text messages to a group of friends that included Taylor Hollingsworth (Dead Fingers, Conor Oberst’s Mystic Valley Band), Wes McDonald (Vulture Whale), Eric Wallace (Bad Hops), and Chris McCauley (Holy Youth).
The project was under when in early 2020 when it was temporarily halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, though the members quickly found a way to complete the record, which features the first single, “Walking Home”. The song is buoyed by country-inflected guitar lines and a powerful pop heft that recalls the glory of early Big Star, the Nerves, and other underground savants while retaining its own exciting identity.
McCauley says, “It’s a song a person who’s down-and-out. Maybe the term grifter is appropriate? The track highlights what happens when someone takes advantage of their friends and acquaintances, hides out afterward, then reemerges with more bad habits. At the end of the song, I picture the person walking home from a bar after asking folks to borrow money, which is a sad and appropriate image. Also, the opening line of the track (‘I’m staying at home and it’s wearing thin…’) might lead you to think it was written during the COVID quarantine; surprisingly, we wrote the song before we went into lockdown.”
TRACKLIST
1. Inside Out
2. Walking Home
3. Throw Me Around
4. Out to Sea
5. Wild Thing II
6. Yes Yes No Yes Yes No
7. Same Do
8. Gold Rush
9. Patty’s Patio
10. One and Done