“Leave Us and Forgive Us” is a fist-pumping banger ready to get the party started, so why is it the second-to-last track on Alberta Cross’ debut Broken Side of Time?
“Loading up the first half of records with the strongest material is what record labels do, not artists,” frontman Petter Ericson Stakee tells SPIN.com about the song, which you can stream below.”You don’t use the best parts of a movie in the beginning.”
These London rockers, who recently moved to Brooklyn, released a pair of acclaimed EPs that landed them the opening slot for Oasis, the Shins, and Bat for Lashes. (We gave their recent Bonnaroo performance a thumbs up.) But Stakee says “Leave Us and Forget Us” was inspired by older acts from his childhood: “It’s like a lot of music that we grew up loving — like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr.”
Still, it’s hard not to hear echoes of younger rockers like Kings of Leon and My Morning Jacket in Stakee’s tortured wails and furious guitar thrashing.”We were kind of going for the wall of sound thing on this one,” he says.
Broken Side of Time drops September 22 via ATO Records. You can also check out an exclusive SPIN.com video of Alberta Cross performing acoustic backstage at Bonnaroo right here.
LISTEN:Alberta Cross, “Leave Us And Forgive Us”
