Rather than spending their time searching for fame, Baltimore’s Arbouretum have instead concentrated on honing their craft. The band’s poetic lyrics and slow, heavy build are not stuff of the quick fix. Their music stands in stark contrast to a culture more concerned with video and track placement than criticism and discourse.

Arbouretum have been praised in Mojo 4 star reviews that end with phrases like “It just does not get much better,” a Guardian piece proclaiming that they are “One of the most distinctive voices around” and an Uncut 4 star review calling the music “Dense, thrilling and literate.”

Fifth full length album ‘Coming Out Of The Fog’ continues Arbouretum’s journey as their most focused and best-recorded album to date. Dave Heumann’s vocals soar atop his guitar solos and Corey Allender’s crunchy bass lines. Arbouretum have reigned in some of their maximalist tendencies, with every song coming in under 7 minutes. Heumann, Allender, Brian Carey (drums), and Matthew Pierce (keyboard, synthesizer, percussion) continue to mine the same breadth of styles made familiar on ‘The Gathering’ and ‘Song Of The Pearl’, notably the languid ballads, fuzzed-out burners, and heavier songs that have defined the group’s unique doom laden folkrock sound.

Throughout ‘Coming Out Of The Fog’, Heumann’s vocals take on a meditative quality, melodies unravelling effortlessly over Carey’s steady grooves. Syncopated rhythms come to the fore on ‘The Promise’, building tension, and leading to a climax of synth swells and chromatic guitar lines. Elsewhere, on ‘Oceans Don’t Sing’, guest musician Dave Hadley’s plaintive pedal-steel guitar lays a bed for some of Heumann’s most impassioned singing set to tape. Spending time on pre-production allowed for a more detailed approach to recording. Carey’s drums were tuned specifically for almost
every track on the album, and tape was used to achieve the warmth only found in analogue.

LP version includes fully artworked inner sleeve and free download coupon. First 500 LPs are pressed on white vinyl, remaining copies on black.

“Arbouretum have forged a new alloy of psychedelic heavy rock that captures the narrative power and sonic fury of electric Neil Young, the floral qualities of 1960s British psychedelia and the textural use of distortion at the foundation of drone and stoner rock… Arbouretum arises out of the psychedelic swamp blazing with an almost shamanic power” – New York Press

“Gorgeous” – Stereogum

“Imagine the mantric ur-song of fellow Baltimorians Lungfish welded to the flannel-shirted muscle of Creedence and Crazy Horse played with the fervour of folk rock” – Vice