Album Notes

High Score Blackout (due for release March 24) is the first full-length LP from SF buzz band
TLXN. Building on the strength of their 3 EP's, High Score Blackout features both charmingly sentimental pop songs, as well as a more urgent and demanding rock 'n roll pace, driven by the addition of new drummer Mie Araki.




Over the last few years The Love Times Nowhere (TLXN) has been developing their big, rich sound, which has been described as everything from post-indie or psychedelic, to evoking the elegant, suave vastness of mid-70s Roxy Music. High Score Blackout, their fourth release is all of those things and so much more. Over the course of eleven tracks they take you on a journey through genres and moods. This is not a collection of singles, but a coherent statement from a band with enough history to see it’s own future.

Recorded in the fall of 2008 by Justin Phelps (Cake, Dresden Dolls) in legendary SF studios Tiny Telephone and Hyde St., as well as their own kitchens and rehearsal spaces, this album is their boldest effort yet. Bill Laswell inspired horns and strings are layered throughout, bringing forth the emotional undercurrents of the songs, driven by guitars, echoed in the keyboards and held together by surging and insistent rhythms. TLXN has always drawn comparisons to early Pink Floyd, but what we hear on High Score Blackout sounds more urgent and assured, along the lines of modern album rockers such as Doves or My Morning Jacket.

Since 2004 TLXN has ridden the wave from obscurity to “buzz” band and back again. They’ve had the industry come knocking only to find a vacant porch on the opened door. Along the way key members have worked on side or solo efforts, such as Gabriel’s work with Dan the Automator and Mike Patton on the Crudo project, or Brett's revival of SadSadFun. These experiences have enriched the depth of sound and the variety of the ideas heard on the album. With all the pieces now in place and the time to write together, they’ve brought back a soaring and elegiac sound, a claim to their own place in American rock music.