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Today, Eric Slick invites listeners to dance, sing and seethe along to an inescapable sensation called New Age Rage. Out April 26th on Thirty Tigers, the new album from the Philly-born, Nashville-based singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is a statement about humankind's harrowing future, served on a silver platter of rapturous rock music, robot-funk, sleazy disco and experimental synth-pop. Across the 10-track opus, Eric Slick confronts the dangers of modern pitfalls like artificial intelligence, self-driving cars and mass media manipulation, while exploring the impossibility of living in the moment, the struggles of being accepted as one's truest self, and – above all – the perilous sin of perfectionism. Each song showcases the sonic versatility and abundance of charisma that has landed Slick on Taylor Swift recordings, on the road as part of Waxahatchee’s live band, at the helm of the original score for Hilary Swank's 2023 film The Good Mother, and behind the drum set for nearly 15 years as a full-time member of Dr. Dog. Throughout New Age Rage, arrangements offer gemlike surprises with every listen, from samples of mouth clicks, the Taco Bell "bong," dial-up modem sounds and AOL Instant Messenger’s door slam, to a bevy of contributions from close collaborators such as his wife Natalie Prass, Diane Coffee, Finom (fka OHMME), Liam Kazar, mmeadows, VV Lightbody, Kimaya Diggs, members of Butcher Brown, Deep Sea Diver and many more.
Pre-order New Age Rage, listen to lead single "Lose Our Minds" and watch the maniacal new music video: HERE
Described as a dance party for the apocalypse, "Lose Our Minds" is a conceptual reinterpretation of Prince's "1999," which Eric Slick and Natalie Prass first started working on in 2017. When bringing that vision further to life for the song's music video, Slick actually did end up in the emergency room, hence the hospital scenes. He was chainsawing his tree during the production and accidentally scratched his cornea, but on the song and today's announcement of New Age Rage, Slick says:
"'Lose Our Minds' is the manifesto for New Age Rage. Everyone has gotten so impulsive and reactive, myself included. We don't give ourselves a second to think about the consequences of our actions. This song is my way of saying, let's shed our toxic behaviors and embrace our flaws. When you turn to dust, you become a star. Why shouldn't we cut loose and get on the dance floor while we're still here? Relationships are the most important thing to nurture, so I invited my whole community to contribute to this album. We threw our whole lives into it, and I'm so excited to share it with you. It's my favorite record I've made yet."
New Age Rage is Eric Slick's first solo record since 2020's Wiseacre, hailed by Rolling Stone as "a crackpot singer-songwriter fantasy of 1970s AM-radio art-pop splendor." Now, alongside the album's co-producer Andy Molholt (Speedy Ortiz), mixer Jeremy Ferguson (Be Your Own Pet, Lambchop), and co-writers such as Kyle Ryan (Kacey Musgraves) and Natalie Prass, Slick has found fresh inspiration in musical heroes and longtime influences such as Yellow Magic Orchestra, Haruomi Hosono and Talking Heads, films including The Eyes of Tammy Faye and 1986 flop Ratboy, and feelings like paranoia and the deep sadness instilled by the passing of his beloved dog Marvin. Songs sit at the intersection of arena rock ("Anxious To Please"), MC Hammer and Prefab Sprout ("New Age Rage"), and Sly Stone, Hall and Oates and Ryuichi Sakamoto ("The Moment"), making for a collection as eclectic as Slick's ever-expanding list of recording and performance credits: The War On Drugs, Kevin Morby, Ruston Kelly, Adrian Belew, Ween and many more.
Alongside the album release, Eric Slick and his new live band will present New Age Rageat a series of theatrical, experiential tour dates across the US, bringing a multimedia extravaganza to NYC's TV Eye, Philadelphia's Johnny Brenda's, Atlanta's Shaky Knees Music Festival, Nashville's Blue Room, LA's Zebulon, his first-ever West Coast shows and more this April and May. Find the list of shows below and tickets at ericslick.com.
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