Little Gold - Wake Up & Die Right LP

Christian DeRoeck wasn’t sure he’d ever make another Little Gold record.
 
The Athens, Ga. country-rock band was broken up, and the frontman was feeling like the project had run its course. But then the songs started coming. As he started writing the collection of tracks that would become the group’s first new material in five years, DeRoeck noticed they all felt tied to a very specific time in his life — part of a period he’d need to get the band back together to properly revisit.
 
The result is "Wake Up & Die Right," out Nov. 20 via Sophomore Lounge and Science Project Records. It’s a warm, nostalgic record that tackles the way we tend to romanticize the past, even when the past wasn’t so great. The band identifies as “bummer basement country” on their bandcamp page, and a quick listen proves that’s pretty on the nose. Fans of Silver Jews, Teenage Fanclub, Wooden Wand, etc. will find a kinship here. It’s deeply personal for DeRoeck, whose late parents appear on the front and back covers, about a time in his life over a decade ago when he needed to heed the title’s advice and get it together.
-Bonnie Stiernberg