Cursed Experience Blackout On New EP

After Goodfellow Records released Cursed II, Cursed proceeded to do something a lot of independent Canadian bands lack the resolve to do: they decided to tour, a lot.

As the record was garnering rave reviews across Canada and the rest of the globe, the band trekked from coast to coast in a beat-up old Suburban. Chris Colohan is quick to reminisce upon their global journeys.

"We played over 200 shows in 2005 between Europe, Canada and the U.S. The best was probably Cardiff [Wales], where we played in a third-floor bedroom stuffed full of kids. We saw a lot of places I never thought we'd see, like the Eastern Bloc countries and Greece. The best bands aren't the flashy ones you'd expect, but the teenaged ones who don't know everything yet, who you'll never hear of again."

Most bands with a touring schedule as treacherous as Cursed's would have called it quits and/or attempted to kill each other. However, Cursed have opted to return to the "lab" and complete their anxiously awaited new Blackout At Sunrise EP.

When asked about the EP, Colohan says, "It's the first recording with Dan Dunham on bass, though he's been with us forever now, and you can hear his hand in it, in the pants-shitting low-end rumble. We cover 'Hawaii' by Kittens on the B-side, too.

"Christian McMaster's guitar writing just gets more and more intense, and Dan's influence has really changed the backbone of our sound. Stylistically, we don't premeditate this kind of thing too much, just kick out jams and stop when they feel right, but there's a lot of fast rippers, slow jams and some new shit we'll try out.

"Blackout At Sunrise was recorded in the stairwells of the mystical Sonic Unyon building by Donny Cooper (Hoosier Poet, The Inflation Kills) and is produced so heavily that the world may tilt off of its axis. We'd worked with Donny before on the Hell Comes Home EP. He's an amazing engineer and producer to work with, and he does our live sound, too. He knows us personally, and what we're going for, and draws the right mix of low-end dirt and high-end clarity out of the recording."

Blackout At Sunrise is available now for pre-order through the Goodfellow Records website. Although the official release date is set for Feb. 20, 2007, label folks say they'll start sending the EP out "after Christmas."