One Band, One Album, Two Videos: The Wheel Workers Rev Up for Citizens Release

Oh, how I love this band. {The Suffers} may be the ones getting all the press right now (and deservedly so), but my own personal Magic 8-Ball proclaims/hopes that {The Wheel Workers} are the next H-town band to surge upwards into the spotlight. They are simultaneously brilliant and down-to-earth, sincerely progressive and catchy as hell, that rare band that can incorporate thoughtful politics into music while keeping things fun and engaging.

All of which explains why I’m so, so happy to see/hear new full-length Citizens coming down the pike. I was mightily impressed by the band’s 2013 release, Past to Present, and therefore had a pretty high bar set in my mind for the followup. And now that I’ve actually heard it…well, they ignored the bar entirely and just took off flying in a retro-futuristic spacecraft powered by pure joy.

I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, though, so you’ll have to hang on ’til the real-live review gets posted (soon, I swear). For now I’ll just say that The Wheel Workers are freaking awesome, and they’ve gone a very different direction from the path they marched down last time. And it’s good. Oh, is it good.

To prepare everybody for the release — the official album release show, by the by, is on Friday, May 22nd, over at Fitzgerald’s, and the Workers crew will be playing with fellow awesome people {New York City Queens} and Oil Boom — the band’s released not one but two videos, both of which are great in their own special way.

First up, they debuted the video for new song “Yodel” over on The Big Takeover (to which I give my hearty applause). It’s strange and quirky, with a dark undertone that belies the goofy fun of the song’s arrangement and the video, which sees the band members as characters in an oddball almost-Western where random people call one another on cellphones and guns shoot, um, flowers. No, I’m serious; just watch, alright?:

Then, on a slightly different tack, earlier this week The Wheel Workers released a cool little album preview on YouTube, where they not only showcase a bit of the music from the album but chat about it (along with über-producer Dan Workman) as they hang out over at Sugar Hill Studios. It’s very cool, especially to hear where the band sees themselves going on Citizens.

Here you go:

Oh, and if you can’t wait ’til May 22nd to see the band live, The Wheel Workers are also playing this coming weekend, on Sunday, May 10th over at Pavement Clothing for this month’s Mini Pops market/fair/fun occasion. And hey, you can always take Mom, right? Do it.