Emmy-nominated singer/songwriter and musician The White Buffalo has shared the new single and video “Winter Act 2,” out today, watch HERE. The song is the second single to be unveiled from his extraordinary forthcoming album Year Of The Dark Horse, set for release November 11 on Snakefarm Records, the album is now available for pre-order, HERE.
This weekend, The White Buffalo performed a stripped down acoustic performance from the Rebels & Renegades Festival in Monterey, CA on Paste magazine’s “Paste Studio On The Road”; watch and share the performance, HERE.
Recorded at Neon Cross Studios in Nashville, TN with Jay Joyce (Eric Church, Brothers Osborne, Fidlar). “My forthcoming album is a sonic and lyrical journey of one lunar year in one man’s life,” says Jake Smith, The White Buffalo. “Four seasons in 12 songs… Loosely based on my twisted truths and adventures. I wanted to show the seasonal effect on the heart and the mind. I also wanted to abandon, sonically, everything. Escape the acoustic clutches and genres I’ve been associated with and shackled to. I wanted to make my headphones album. Every song bleeds into the next.”
Roughly based around the shifting of the seasons paralleled with the shifting of a relationship, on Year Of The Dark Horse, Smith continues his evocative storytelling through emotionally weighted songs that allow the imagination of the listener to play an important part throughout; the music builds on a tale of debauchery and blame, of love and loss, a life lived against the odds, the whole thing set in one lunar year, following our anti-hero through the highs and lows of the seasons.
TWB recently shared the first single and video off the album, “Not Today,” watch HERE. “Not Today” immediately draws the listener with its hopeful metaphor of the start of a new year which fades through a horserace and wanes as the days tick on until ultimately another year has passed by. From highlights “Kingdom For A Fool,” “52 Card Pickup,” “Donna,” and more, Year Of The Dark Horse offers an invigorating and wonderfully unpredictable listen. A collection of 12 musical vignettes individual yet constant in flow, it’s The White Buffalo’s most ambitious and well-rounded work to date, with the full scope of Smith’s songwriting craft on view.
Now with seven albums plus various EPs in its locker The White Buffalo–is rounded out by touring/recording compadres Christopher Hoffee, bassist/keyboards/guitars, and drummer Matt Lynott.
NPR’s “All Songs Considered” tagged The White Buffalo as an “amazing storyteller,” the Los Angeles Times added “Smith’s baritone echoes with villains and misfits, drunks, and philistines,” and Classic Rock magazine declared TWB “America’s darkest country/blues export…imagine a blue collar Tom Waits, or Nick Cave pumping gas in a station just off the highway.”
A powerful and prolific storyteller through his songcraft, Smith’s body of work includes prominent song and soundtrack placements in the worlds of TV and film including the shows Sons Of Anarchy, This Is Us, Californication, The Punisher, The Terminal List, and the films Shelter, Safe Haven and West of Memphis. The White Buffalo’s dark blues and light Americana-roots-tinged folk provided a soundtrack of tunes for the entire seven season run of the FX original series Sons of Anarchy, which included 11 songs overall. The last song in the series finale for SOA “Come Join The Murder,” earned The White Buffalo his first-ever Emmy-Award Nomination.
The White Buffalo kick off a nationwide Fall U.S. headlining tour on Friday, November 4.
