Websites specializing in all manner of intense music are reporting today that the deliberate and heavy shoegaze—or “stonegaze,” as they prefer—trio True Widow has signed to Relapse Records. Sites as diverse as Blabbermouth.net, Punknews.org, and “Gun Shy Assasin,” (“More Metal Than Your Momma’s Kettle,” according to its tagline) are all weighing in on the very noteworthy signing event, though some are more breathless than others. For instance, here is Gun Shy Assassin on the group:
Before today, I had never heard of True Widow. But if Relapse is going to sign them, they can’t be half-bad.
From Dallas, True Widow is a “reverb-drenched shoegaze” threesome.
With that kind of honesty and ambiguity allowed, I’m wondering if maybe I should toss them some writing samples.
True Widow is currently working on a record at The Echo Lab, the same studio where local duo Pinkish Black have recently been working on their debut album for Century Media, another iconically heavy record label.
The suburban Philadelphia-based Relapse is one of the most recognized imprints largely (though not always) specializing in metal, having put out records for the past 22 years by the likes of Mastodon, High On Fire, and Dillinger Escape Plan. This also puts True Widow in the company of another local act, the significantly more extreme Kill the Client, who are responsible for the local semi-classic, “Wage Slave.”
True Widow will go a long way in further expanding the spectrum for which Relapse is currently known, and it appears 2013 is already yielding some of the same attention and surprise signings that last year brought various musicians from the Local Music Class of 2008. That’s always a positive for Dallas, where signings of this magnitude are few and far between.
Image: True Widow performing at Fort Worth’s Chat Room Pub, in 2010. Photo by Sally Glass.
