Album Notes

We are the Empire State because we alone have all the makings of a great empire. Coal. Grain. Timber. Iron. Granite and Slate. Livestock. Game. Fresh water. Our per-acre agricultural output far exceeds that of any other state. We are too far inland to be hurt by hurricanes, yet too coastal and hilly to see tornadoes of any significance. Long after the world’s oil is gone, and the deserts once again are parched, we will still have our canals, our rivers and our lakes. This is our birthright, and from all of this – from the Hardcore squats of mid-1990s Buffalo to the North Country metal parties in July, from the explosives, the grease fires, the dog fights and homemade tattoos – Empire State Troopers make their rock.

"They are one of relatively few bands that I know of who's recordings are proof that they are of an embarrassingly rare breed of great live bands. This immediately sets them apart from the current landscape of bands whose existence is built on piecemeal constructions of heavily edited, quantized drumtracks, samples and use of pitch correction. None of which was employed in the making on this great record. They are the real deal." Jason Loewenstein (Sebadoh, Fiery Furnaces, Engineer of Upstate Again)