Milwaukee’s Bicentennial Drug Lord have recently announced the forthcoming release of their new EP,  BDL, which will be released on August 27. Today they share the second single, “Summer’s Coming Down,” of which the band notes is their “ode to the adventures and regrets earned trying to beat the impossible heat of a languid summer’s night in the south.”

“Summer’s Coming Down” follows the release of the first single from BDL, “Confessed The Sheets” which is a mix of 1970’s The Who (complete with Townshend keyboards in the chorus), 1980’s Simple Minds, and 1990’s indie rock.  

For the forthcoming BDL, Bicentennial Drug Lord reunited in a cottage outside of Richmond, VA. The new songs reflect a fresh collaborative approach to songwriting and a shift away from the country focus of their debut.  The songs are more reflective of  “Confessed the Sheets.” with big choruses, subtle songwriting, and indie pop sprinkled with a dose of 70’s rock.  

BDL is the first new music Bicentennial Drug Lord have released since their debut album The First Hit Is Free in 1997.  The band formed when longtime friends John Daniels (Soda, Maki), Rick Donner (Punchdrunk) and Alan Weatherhead (Soda, Maki, Sparklehorse, Hotel Lights) needed a side project where, as Weatherhead puts it, “we could play and record the sad-sack country songs we wrote and couldn’t play in our main bands” (sample lyric: “Are you alone enough to miss me, are you drunk enough to kiss me”).  Recorded by Mike Wisti with original Hold Steady drummer (and Punchdrunk member) Judd Counsell, the Gear Daddies’ Randy Broughten on pedal steel, and Son Volt’s Dave Boquist on fiddle, BDL’s debut record The First Hit Is Free crystallized a Minneapolis winter with music that could thaw even the iciest heart.

Photo Courtesy: Mark Cherek