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Laying by the Fire in Good Company

by Curse League

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dyl
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dyl i love how the first song sets the tone for the record. really great instrumentation throughout Favorite track: The Badlands.
Sonserai
Sonserai thumbnail
Sonserai The guitar riffs, bass lines, and artillery drums alone would make a killer instrumental album. But then the lyrics add a lovely, warm depth to the bigger picture. Upbeat, good vibes math rock. What more can you ask for? Favorite track: Tijuana.
John Ingalls
John Ingalls thumbnail
John Ingalls Like an autumn drive with the window down, going to cool places. Plus, I sold car insurance to Alex in AK, and have been a huge fan ever since! Favorite track: Landlords, Druglords.
Tom A
Tom A thumbnail
Tom A What a win for everyone on
Team Cute & Wholesome Mathy-Emo Favorite track: Dunes of Yuma.
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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    First batch of 225 Digipak CD's made in collaboration with Lost State Records, Qiii Snacks Records, and Pacific Nature Records

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  • SOLD OUT "Orange LOST Tapes" - Cassette
    Cassette + Digital Album

    A limited edition orange tape featuring a wonderful design by Mollie Thompson made from the Curse League arts & crafts party at Jake's house. Only 100 copies available!

    Includes unlimited streaming of Laying by the Fire in Good Company via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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  • Moose League Tee
    T-Shirt/Apparel + Digital Album

    We screen printed these short-sleeve shirts ourselves! In addition to the shirt size, please let us know whether you would like the shirt color to be black or white.

    Moose graphic was designed by our good friend Mollie Thompson.

    The very handsome looking audio engineer modeling the design is Cameron Heck.

    For long sleeves, sweaters, sweatshirts, v-necks, and other Curse League apparel come to a show and check out our merch table!

    Online sales are short-sleeve black or white shirts only (for now). Thank you so much for supporting us!

    Includes unlimited streaming of Laying by the Fire in Good Company via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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  • Twofer Tapes
    Cassette + Digital Album

    Yowza! Chester found FOUR "Bodega Disco" tapes while moving apartments so we're bundling them up with our most recent record. Save money when you buy them together!

    Includes unlimited streaming of Laying by the Fire in Good Company via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

1.
The Badlands 02:20
kate says when you look to the outside do you see a great sunrise as she looks in her mothers eyes and her friends know she wont go as she stares through the window from the quiet of the living room as the fire gently brews did the badlands abandon, and make off like a bandit? does the soil still forsake you, and remind you what's on the news? as the president’s god will choose of this alien family’s dues and I don’t know what to do didn’t think I’d be here too laying by the fire in good company
2.
Tijuana 04:09
nightmares comb through the sea fog horns scream desperately i held my tongue as I woke to the sun soaked in dust carve my name into the stone That sits in the midst of the wall in the sea like a ghost of the border patrol orphan of San Diego cut my teeth, hit the road the gloam of ysidro shake hands with Mexico star spangled scar in my bones 500 years flashes cracks of whips and crimes still untold across the wire I go walk TJ night and day stranger in a strange land named home all cats in the cradle are cold father/mother will I see you once again
3.
Detenido 04:10
Kate’s song is a caravan, a peregrine to a promised land conquered by the migras hands, a parlor trick, the sleight of hand down down to goblin town, she waves goodbye to familiar grounds this medicine will not contain you, it hates you packed in like a sardine can, a spoonful of slop in a lavish land, wait your turn girl did we cross the Jordan for a godsend? we're so deep we got the bends. like cavalcades through the gates they stamp your card and make you wait Kate shackles her eyes to the ground beguiling the guards, a hopeful sound leer so salaciously and heinously occasionally no love in the wild wild west, just play your cards and hope for the best against the prophets of profit the short stick is a one way ticket to TJ cross the wailing wire again like cavalcades fingers crossed you’ll find your way back to us so saddle up and sign your name glance out from in this southbound train and in a flash she's on her way this show has got no call backs today you're in the driver’s seat now, even though you don't know how
4.
eyes wide to what lays beyond the gates snare traps, street dogs lure me looking sweet castaway like an old dog run astray ripe for ransom the squatters squeal are you a member of the casket caste? join the Curse League welcome to the club i tersely close my eyes and think about home the squatters sell my skin turn a blind lamb into a meek mule like a love note sent to the wrong home we'll eat you up, we love you so
5.
hey so Kate where do you stay? pick your poison or your poison will pick you today one roads a witch hunt and the other is the road that leads you home darkness shrouds every choice that you know. dead as dust/ heads a clock tick and tock, the metronome broke when life's like poor escapement bootstraps moving pavement north now you’re not designed to die but this could go awry trying to trek alone you got a ways to go try your eyes at looking down and befriend the ground
6.
Burrero 02:53
this mutiny is ripe 'neath the desert stars at night where the coyotes only lie dried up like salt in a scab dislodged like dust in the wind the cartel or la carcel as I cross again a familiar sound like a bad dream under a spell when I knock again will you let me in as a sheep dressed in wolf’s skin but I can't breath the canary is gone ruminate on desiccation new Mirages Yuma’s miles and miles ahead
7.
faces of old friends bring her down no noise just the silent somber sound Kate concedes to conquer this world alone backroads and old growth that take ya home sunk low you feel like you’re bailing out this boat new friends in the shadows of Yuma is the caravan a callous clan..? I don't know!? she can't speak, tongue tied and cold feet, and she joins their army like a vagabond queen
8.
i’m braving the border winds counting my cardinal sins again rearranging constellations constantly just trynna make the carcass of this compass work but what the hell is true north anyway death must be in denial, cause he's dug us all a grave, now looks like he's just playing games vascillating, blindly by the barrel, point blank strap the negra. with me rectifying back in time, gadsden lines, the kids might die, the crooks cash out on time we are a conscious corral the killer's curse is just to do your job subtle heralds, haunt me ghosts engrossing, slowly dunes of Yuma, enslave to remind me darkest days, DEA, Sinaloa sinking back again cowboys indians real guns again with rival rifles rallying this circus is a cover up a masquerade the war on drugs kids get in fights but sticks will turn to knives and commonly conflate the two as if we’re colorblind stop me I'm doomed to push this pencil farther focus, like a pawn does, on standing up through the landslide this endless conquest has gone and fell by the wayside the K9's push the confines, and have us east and left to die i toyed with, the short stick landed upside down with a black eye, a goodbye appease the narcs, throw the dogs a bone scarecrow befriending the crows oh, now in cahoots with wild animals i know that we carelessly evoked a motion oh, now we rocked the boat take flight, close my eyes, I don’t need the yoke but now that I lost control i’ll hope for some water so I can grow, this garden is dry to the bone hallows at the crossroads selling souls for just a couple chemicals
9.
10.
The Fox Den 04:38
two clans, to the promised land, ambulating on, all the people of the sun rivals, ripen the chasm, foraging for friends, searching for their kin nomadically erratically we came to see if sanctuary really does exist and upon this road, an unmarked home, meet a friendly face named Kate making the room, set the table too, like sheep hosting wolves to leave behind, and make amends, and break bread, like foxes finding dens we’ll sell your skeleton for fun fun tie all your shoes together run run adore your dollar like a son so prone to vilifying choosing tribes is casting a die constellations, connect the dots that we’re, just some stray dogs stranded along, an abandoned desert road, the drug lords are taking a sick day like ghost ships, moored in honest tides, casting out the line hope for a bite, that unrepentant spokes, spoil wheels in line
11.
La Siembra 05:20
irrelevant reverence consecrating the cash cow this country’s underneath another spell say no reload scapegoat new home wait i think we’re actually on the same team in this race i know what I think, and I’m still not pandering, play up the banter while the rest of us are cut up the daughter, the orphan, the meth cooks, the poor man, the hallowed, the angel all sing the same song searching for a heart of gold terrified of getting old hard to let go these aren’t bad bones we do what we know the cats out of the cradle the bait is live join hands new plans we can escape this just a seed but I could grow if you watered me hey we found this family of broken folks and it was okay we painted pictures of crumbled mountains drew up drawings of paper houses hoped for love and dreams and death and called it a day i know the cats in the cradle but some things we let go and now we can grow old laying by the fire in good company

credits

released April 30, 2018

Kai Brunson - Guitar
Chester Cun - Guitar, Drums, Vocals
Jake Campbell - Drums, Guitar, Lead Vocals
Alexandria Hickel - Bass

Blake Ross - Banjo on "The Badlands"
Kara Aber Chambers - Vocals on "The Badlands", "Tijuana", "Dunes of Yuma", and "La Siembra"
Cameron Simons - Drums/Percussion on "Narcocorrido Nuevo"

Drums tracked at Heck Family Manor (Mukilteo)
Guitar, Bass, Vocals tracked at Crying Man Studios (West Seattle)
Mixed/Tracked/Produced by Cameron Heck
Mastered to tape by Nicholas Wilbur at The Unknown (Anacortes)

Album Artwork/Insert by Mollie Thompson w/ help from friends, Yufi64, Itemfinder, and Difficult Children.

Tapes and CD's available on April 30th, 2018 through Lost State Records (PDX) loststate.bandcamp.com, 琪琪音像 | Qiii Snacks Records (HK) qiiisnacksrecords.bandcamp.com, and Pacific Nature Records (CA) pacificnature.bandcamp.com


PRESS / REVIEWS:

"Laying by the Fire in Good Company is the first full length album from the Seattle based, math-rock and emo band Curse League. Everything I want from an album is present and charging forward making me feel heavy and awake. Between balancing the impressive and well-constructed story woven throughout the 11-track release, Laying by the Fire Good Company well deserves any and all praise given. The notion of a compelling narrative being told while keeping the musicality of what “math rock” is seems to be a challenge tackled only by some of the greats in the genre (i.e. This Town Needs Guns, tricot, and many others of the Sargent House Records crew). Aside from the math rock sound, there are elements of emo from the early revival era to calling of sounds from the early 2000’s. Curse League is the archetype something well constructed. A lot of math rock draws a line I am unable to cross; perhaps due to the technicality of what is presented creating something disingenuous and hyper-focused. This release is honest and loud and alive."

- Ankle Tops (Aaron Scobie)

"...the bouncy energy that radiates from the sweet noodling of these intricate riffs plays off an opulent if not saccharine shout that echoes through your head like a rubber ball bouncing off the walls of an empty room. Curse League does it a bit different; opting to trade-in those emotionally ripe shouts for something more subdued, and there’s a peacefulness to those vocals that creates a beautiful contrast from the sharp, staccato notes that bounce back at you with every listen."

- Substream Magazine (Joel Funk)

"The album opens with ‘The Badlands’, a strangely satisfying emo-folk-bluegrass merger that has the band extolling the virtues of campfire tranquility in soothing vocal harmony. From here, Laying By The Fire launches into a cavalcade of emo with twiddly-twaddly guitar play aplenty. This is a release that is bound to satisfy aficionados of Tiny Moving Parts, Two Knights and the Topshelf Records oeuvre. For those searching for some heartfelt, straight-up-the-middle emo with a sprinkle of math rock, look no further."

- Fecking Bahamas (Nikk Hunter)

"Curse League uses the under-the-stars jangle as a jumping off point for the album’s sprawling story of an illegal immigrant and an American orphan retreating down to Mexico to find something worth living for. Kinship between an illegal immigrant and an outcast American makes for a compelling narrative, and although it is a political move to spotlight a relationship of this sort, Curse League avoid any simple anti-wall slogans, instead opting to focus intensely on the ups-and-downs their two characters face as they travel south and work to make their way north again."

- Atwood Magazine (Connor Bush)

"This Seattle band's debut full-length is an energetic blend of intricate math-rock and emotive punk with angular guitars, tricky, shape-shifting rhythms, impassioned vocals and anthemic song hooks."

- KEXP

"Curse League deliver a bold take on the well explored math-rock formula that finds them set apart from their peers in their conceptual/musical ambition. In a scene that fetishizes technique over song structure/album flow, Curse League took the time to make sure that every song is not only theoretically sound, but also ensured that sonically the songs match the thematic elements being presented by the vocalist in a cohesive manner that will leave a lasting impact on the listener."

- Sick Snaps (Tony Vilorio)

"Curse League writes with meaning. Their upcoming record, Laying by the Fire in Good Company, will take the listener on the path of a carefully written story, built upon the foundation of delicately crafted songs."

- Seattle Music Insider (Paddy Moran)

"Curse League takes math rock and drives it off the rails. They make music that your mom will not like and they’re fine with that... Curse League tactfully plays with the intersection of emo and math rock, telling a story which largely unfolds on the US/Mexico border about immigrants, cartels, and community."

- Northwest Music Scene

"Curse League, an indie band out of Seattle that blends emo and math rock to produce a sound softer than both. Its music, as emphasized on its most recent album, Laying by the Fire in Good Company (self-released, 2018), is curated chaos, a jumble of notes woven just tightly enough to become song."

- Boise Weekly (Lex Nelson)

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Curse League Seattle, Washington

blake, kai, jake, & chester
booking@curseleague.com

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