Premiere: Will Bennett & the Tells play a bit of ‘Charades’
Americana band revisit a past relationship for an emotionally grueling song from their upcoming album.
Sometimes, you just have to see how things end ⏤ even if the odds of a complete burn-out are a 10 out of 10. It’s the kind of high-stakes gamble you take for the sake of the finish line, and you play the game only to fulfill some cosmic destiny to which you feel tethered. Your emotional bondage pulls you far below the surface, and you may gargle and wriggle and drown, yet you’ll be far better for it. That’s at least the case for Chicago area Americana band Will Bennett & the Tells, who wade chest-deep into the flood waters raging and thrashing against their bodies. With “Charades,” premiering today, frontman Will Bennett nose-dives right off the deep end of a past relationship to regurgitate the flesh-eating piranhas that once fed on his corpse and consumed him completely.
“I can read your body language / So don’t just let me languish / Just waiting around for the other shoe to drop,” he sings upon a bedrock of woolly guitars and fiercely-pummeling percussion. He tears open the past with a carnivorous angst, simply letting the inevitably dying flames to rekindle for a fleeting emotional bonfire which then laps up any other traces. “You can blame your intuition or the human condition / Or the well-dressed guy making eyes across the bar / But I know the signs and it’s written in the stars / I’m the sap who should’ve never got this far,” he confronts his own involvement, establishing himself as an equal player in the collapse. Bennett’s frank vocals, often laced with a sly tilt on ends of lyrics or stanzas, pins the production to the floor, and his band mates Daniel Martinson, Ethan Kenvarg and Wilson Brehmer play and dance and color in ripe flourishes outside the lines when necessary.
Recorded at Chicago’s Shirk Studios alongside engineer Stephen Shirk (Alabama Shakes, First Aid Kit), “Charades” rattles Bennett’s emotional journey loose, catapulting him through the air before landing back on his head. As grueling as the past might have been, he takes the impact with stride before regaining his footing with far more self-worth and assurance. “Much of this album deals with my experiences growing up in rural Iowa, and inertia is one of the recurring themes. It’s the force that hangs heavy over my hometown and keeps things pretty stagnant,” Bennett tells B-Sides & Badlands of the song, in many ways operating as the contrasting lightning rod to the rest of the album’s overarching story. “On this song, I wanted to take the idea of inertia in the complete opposite direction. It’s about diving headfirst into a failing relationship despite knowing things are going to end badly.”
“Charades” anchors the band’s new album, All Your Favorite Songs, out July 26. It’s now up for pre-order.
Listen below:
Check out upcoming tour dates:
May 8 – The Owl – Chicago, IL
May 9 – X-Ray Arcade – Cudahy, WI
May 10 – Palmer’s Bar – Minneapolis, MN
May 11 – Vaudeville Mews – Des Moines, IA
Photo Credit: Lou Engleman
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