Wild Pink's new album Still Coming Down is out Friday, Aug. 21, and to celebrate its release John Ross & co. will perform an intimate concert that night at Cassette in Queens, NY. Doors open at 7 p.m. ET, tickets cost $20 in advance or $25 day of show, and the poster intriguingly promises a special guest. Not only are we at Stereogum proud to present this noteworthy cultural event, we're giving you a chance to be there for free. Enter below to win two tickets, then blare advance singles "Box Store," "Round Of Applause At The End Of The World," and "500 Is The New 250" in anticipation.
Wild Pink's evolution has been one of the most rewarding storylines in indie rock over the past decade. As his catalog expanded, Ross steered his band through a range of styles and sounds — from gauzy slowcore to dreamy heartland rock to hard-hitting jangle-pop — always maintaining the thoughtful everyman disposition that makes him one of the genre's most brilliantly understated singer-songwriters.
Still Coming Down may be his best album yet. Wild Pink recorded it at Asheville's famed Drop Of Sun with producer Alex Farrar, Hand Habits' Meg Duffy, and figures from the Wednesday/Lenderman extended universe including Jake Lenderman, Landon George, and Xandy Chelmis. The resulting record continues this band's trajectory out of the quiet and into fuzzed-out, high-energy rock music, this time with a Southern twist. Ross remains a master of turning mundanities into profundities and ephemera into epiphanies, whether writing from the perspective of a dimwitted Cybertruck owner, pontificating on the JFK assassination, or shouting out '90s character actors like William Fichtner. Tunes that might have been ballads in the past are now doused in distortion and pedal steel.
The album sounds to us like an instant classic, so we're thrilled to present Wild Pink's hometown release show. Join us there — and if you can't make it to Queens, catch Ross and friends at one of the many gigs lined up to support Still Coming Down this year. And as long as we're discussing Stereogum x Wild Pink collabs, make sure to check out the recent "PlaylistMakers" episode of the Indie Basketball podcast in which Ross, Ovven, host Matt Consolazio, and myself drafted songs with names in the title, assembling them into a 25-track sequence of bangers.
Still Coming Down is out 8/21 on Fire Talk Records. Pre-order it here.
