Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death formed in upstate New York during the late nineties, embodying an angular, loud post punk style which resonated with the era's diverse sounds and scenes. The band derived its name from the phrase commemorating 1816, a year marked by severe crop shortages in North America due to the eruption of Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies.
Following the release of an album and split EP, the band disbanded in 2002. After a hiatus of thirteen years, Eighteen Hundred resumed activities in 2015. Their comeback album, Some Years, produced by J. Robbins (Jawbox, Burning Airlines), came out in 2019, marking their return to new music after nearly two decades.
By 2023, based in Ithaca, NY, the band went to Sunwood Recording in nearby Trumansburg to record fresh material with producer Christopher Ploss. J. Robbins rejoined to mix the record and even contributed backing vocals to the album's closing track.
Their latest album, Thirds, serves as an amalgamation of the band's history with heightened dynamism and comes across fuzzy and infectious in equal measures. Building upon their early edgy noise rock and post punk, the band's new material incorporates elements of metal, topped off with a kind of melodicism typical of American punk.
One standout from the new album is Elevens, a dynamic and nervy track which epitomizes the band's signature sound and overall intensity.
“We spent about five years writing, demoing, recording, then rerecording the new album,” comments the band's singer and guitarist David Nutt. “During that time, we were trudging through the usual murky life stuff: jobs, marriages, kids, mortgages, a medieval plague. After enough years and enough turbulence, work becomes a weird form of solace. Not just the paycheck, but the purpose, the routine. ‘Elevens’ is a kind of paranoid fever dream about life without work—or maybe work without life. The hours are long. The money isn’t great. Is it possible to be laid off from the hereafter? The pink slips never stop coming.”
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