The Black Angels

The Black Angels
Background information
Origin	Austin, Texas, U.S.
Genres	Psychedelic rock, Neo-psychedelia, Alternative rock
Years active	2004 - Present
Labels	Light In The Attic Records
Website	Official Website
Members
Christian Bland Alex Maas Stephanie Bailey Nate Ryan Kyle Hunt
Former members
Jennifer Raines
Notable instruments
"Drone Machine"

The Black Angels are a psychedelic rock band from Austin, Texas,^[1] formed in May 2004. Their name derives from the Velvet Underground song "The Black Angel's Death Song".

In 2005, the Black Angels were featured on dual disc compilation album of psychedelic music called "Psychedelica Vol.1" from Northern Star Records. This, along with the growing popularity of their MySpace page, gave the band a big jump in popularity in the underground scene.

Friday, August 5 2007, they played at Lollapalooza in Chicago. Among other venues, they have played at SXSW 2006 & 2008 and All Tomorrow's Parties 2008. Touring partners have included the blues rock band The Black Keys, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Warlocks, Roky Erickson, and The Raveonettes.

The group's debut LP Passover was generally well received in the underground independent rock community and was noted for its dark tones and lyrical content. A review Passover described them as "Walking in the shadows cast by Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized mastermind Jason Pierce" and compared them to The Warlocks and Black Mountain, also invoking "dirges" reminiscent of both The Velvet Underground and the 13th Floor Elevators.^[1] The band's icon is a stylized/high-contrast negative image of Nico.

Passover included a quote in the liner notes from Edvard Munch; "Illness, insanity, and death are the black angels that kept watch over my cradle and accompanied me all my life."

In December 2007, the group announced on their blog ^[2] that their second album will be released in Spring 2008. On May 13 their second album, Directions to See a Ghost was released. The album reached #23 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart.^[3]

The band was featured on the soundtrack of the 2007 Kevin Bacon movie, Death Sentence and on the second episode of FOX's "Fringe".

Songs from the bands second album, "Directions to See a Ghost" were featured in The History Channels documentary, 'Manson'. The show commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Manson murders and aired Labor Day, 2009.

October 28, 2008 - November 2, 2008 the band performed as Roky Erickson's backing band down the West Coast. Future plans between Roky and The Black Angels are in the works.

Band members

Current

• Stephanie Bailey — drums, percussion, bass
• Christian Bland — guitar, bass, drums
• Kyle Hunt — keyboards, percussion, bass, and guitar
• Alex Maas — vocals, bass, guitar, keyboards, sitar
• Nate Ryan — bass, guitar, occasional drums

Former

• Jennifer Raines — drone machine, keyboards and percussion

Discography

Albums

• Passover (Light in the Attic, 2006)
• Directions to See a Ghost (Light in the Attic, 2008)

EPs

• The Black Angels (Light in the Attic, 2005 EP)
• Black Angel Exit (Light in the Attic, 2008 EP)

Singles

• "The First Vietnamese War" b/w "Nine Years" (released August 21, 2006)
• "Better Off Alone" b/w "Yesterday Always Knows" (released May 28, 2007)
• "Doves" b/w "Drone in G# Major" (released May 20, 2008)

TV Appearances

• Beautiful Noise
• Fuel TV's The Daily Habit
• Fringe
• Californication (TV series)

References

External links

• Official site • Official Band Store
• The Black Angels collection at the Internet Archive's live music archive (Download full concert audio recordings)
• 7-song February 2006 performance and brief interview at KEXP (Seattle), in Real Player and Windows Media Player formats.
• The Interface with The Black Angels - interview & performance podcast on Spinner.com
• The Black Angels at MySpace
• Review of their show at Brooklyn's Lunar Lounge, April 2007
• Photos of The Black Angels

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