TK & The Holy Know Nothings announced a new album, The Incredible Heat Machine, set for release on October 15 via Mama Bird Recording Co. The Portland, Oregon-based rockers also shared the lead single, “Serenity Prayer.”
The Incredible Heat Machine is frontman and guitarist Taylor Kingman and company’s sophomore full-length album. The band features Fruition‘s Jay Cobb Anderson on guitar, drummer Tyler Thompson, bassist Lewi Longmire and keyboardist Sydney Nash. The new LP follows the band’s debut, Arguably OK. The group took to the OK Theatre in the Eastern Oregon cowboy town of Enterprise to recorded the album live on stage with no overdubs.
Press materials for The Incredible Heat Machine described the record as taking “the band’s ‘half-facetiously’ self-described ‘psychedelic doom boogie” and delving “further into the struggles of the working-class musician with themes of substance abuse and redemption, companionship as salvation and the ever-present shadow of disillusionment.”
Lead single “Serenity Prayer” is a clever play on Reinhold Niebuhr’s prayer used in 12 Step recovery programs with Kingman singing “Grant me the serenity to pay for this in change” and “Grant me the wisdom to know I owe the difference.” But the song always returns to the refrain “But a friend behind the bar is a mighty fine deal.” The press release described “Serenity Prayer” as a “Sisyphean journey of a working musician who makes good for a few hours each evening playing at the local tavern before finding themselves inevitably drawn to a seat at the bar again.”
Listen to “Serenity Prayer” below:
