The Head And The Heart – Living Mirage: The Complete Recordings (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

The Head And The Heart – Living Mirage: The Complete Recordings (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 58:08 minutes | 1,09 GB | Genre: Indie Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

The Mojave Desert reverberates with mysticism. It’s a landscape of boulders seemingly transported from the moon alongside Joshua Trees, their tops angled upward like hands grasping at the heavens. This is where everyone from John Lennon and Keith Richards to Victoria Williams and Gram Parsons have come for inspiration. And early last year, it’s where The Head and the Heart decided to shed old skin before writing their fourth album, Living Mirage, a sweeping, artful expansion of the earthy folk rock that once defined them.

This recent “rebirth, a spirit quest of sorts,” as bassist Chris Zasche describes it, came from growing pains after their last album: the amicable departure of guitarist-vocalist Josiah Johnson, replaced by Matt Gervais—husband to singer-violinist Charity Rose Thielen—and the return of keyboardist Kenny Hensley.

“Things in their current form had run its course,” explains drummer Tyler Williams. “We’re better musicians now, because we had to destroy how we did things to allow each other to evolve.” Or as frontman-guitarist Jon Russell puts it more bluntly, “It was a chapter where, if we weren’t going to work on our personal relationships, music was not even going to exist.”

That’s hard to digest when you consider how successful the band had become. The Head and the Heart had played sold out shows at Coachella and Red Rocks. Their past two albums (2013’s rootsy, Let’s Be Still and 2016’s pop-folk Signs of Light) settled into Billboard’s Top 10 albums chart. And they have appeared in Cameron Crowe’s Roadies, with music featured in countless other shows, among them Sons of Anarchy and How I Met Your Mother.

Living Mirage refers to a return to the curiosity that begat the band. “It’s the mystery behind an experience that inspires us to write a song,” Matt says. “I think it’s like the John Keats concept of Negative Capability, which he used to describe a writer’s ability to pursue an artistic vision even if it leads them into a place of uncertainty or confusion.”

Tracklist:
01. The Head And The Heart – Living Mirage (05:14)
02. The Head And The Heart – See You Through My Eyes (03:54)
03. The Head And The Heart – Missed Connection (03:15)
04. The Head And The Heart – Sun Is Rising (03:25)
05. The Head And The Heart – Glory Of Music Ii (04:41)
06. The Head And The Heart – People Need A Melody (04:12)
07. The Head And The Heart – Honeybee (03:16)
08. The Head And The Heart – Brenda (03:48)
09. The Head And The Heart – Backwards Breathing (04:39)
10. The Head And The Heart – Running Through Hell (03:39)
11. The Head And The Heart – Up Against The Wall (03:33)
12. The Head And The Heart – Saving Grace (03:38)
13. The Head And The Heart – I Found Out (03:53)
14. The Head And The Heart – One Big Mystery (03:37)
15. The Head And The Heart – Glory Of Music (03:20)

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