After her involvement in the experimental/noise rock outfit Bloodslide and her recent covers album Manhattan Beach, Swept By Ocean Breezes, AJ Lambert returns with the announcement of new album, Dirt Soda, out in July 2022.
The new full length will be composed mostly of original songs, but it will also include a few covers of tracks originally by Pavement, Codeine and The Casinos, proving once more that Lambert's range spans an array of genres.
With AJ providing the vocals and playing Taurus pedal, piano and guitar on the upcoming album, the rest of the band is rounded out with Parker Kindred (Joan As Policewoman) and Rhys Hastings (Yves Tumor) on drums, Dave Harrington (Darkside) on guitar, and Kenny Gilmore (Julia Holter) on synths.
Dirt Soda is introduced with the atmospheric and moody first single, Staff of the Flag. AJ says of the song: “The idea for Staff of the Flag came after I'd had to make several trips driving up to Northern California from LA. Along my route you pass the last spot where James Dean stopped on his fateful last drive. It's called Blackwell's Corner and they have made it into a major tourist stop, where you can see a lot of memorabilia and buy things that have his name on them - everything from snacks to trinkets. Then a few more miles up that road is the site where the crash happened, where people leave mementos in tribute to him. Also along that route are several "descansos" (roadside shrines) to other people who died driving on that dangerous road (it used to be called Blood Alley). I found it interesting that so many people know that one person who died there, but so many others have met the same fate and go unrecognized except by the people who loved them. The song is about an imaginary woman who, after selling flowers to tourists on their way to the Dean site all day, takes the leftovers to the nearby site where her own loved one died.”