Puritan Themes

Holy Sons is the largely solo project of Emil Amos (Grails, Om, Lilacs and Champagne). Puritan Themes is his 17th album and his 4th for Thrill Jockey Records and a tentpole album in his wide-ranging output, including myriad private press LPs, collections of oddities, and conceptual series’. Puritan Themes’ relaxed vibes are influenced by the laid-back west coast rock sound of mid-period Fleetwood Mac, blended with a dose of psych distortion and imbued with the breeziness and ease of yacht rock. Puritan Themes is a record that knowingly, barely fits into the modern world. When mixing the record in Chicago, everyday Amos skated through Douglass Park listening to podcasts about the inner workings of The Band, listened to 70’s AM radio while washing dishes and went to sleep at night to early Bee Gees interviews. The earliest concept of the record was based around the track “Chain Gang” which was an imaginary take on if Cat Stevens had smoked a ton of salvia and taken a much darker route within that world of dense, story-telling/message-based songwriting. The track “Raw and Disfigured” borrows its name from the last Thrill Jockey Holy Sons record, in a referential move that’s stolen from the way Led Zeppelin separated the track “Houses of the Holy” from the record of the same name (once again harkening back to 70’s lore).