Album Divers

For his next 2021 pick, Shane selects Lana Del Rey's 7th studio album, "Chemtrails Over the Country Club." Trevor and Shane both know Lana Del Rey's music as an influential part of pop culture, but neither had ever taken the time to fully absorb one of her albums. Chemtrails detours some from Lana's prior work with a more stripped down aesthetic, sprawling piano, and subtle production that gives a...

For Shane's pick of an album that has "been around awhile," he selected Dispatch's 1996 debut "Silent Steeples." If you haven't heard of Dispatch, you either slept on the biggest independent band made popular by file sharing in the 90's...or you are Trevor. Dispatch is a difficult band to classify, but this debut features acoustic guitar driven lyrical worlds that give hints of reggae and jam band...

For his first album of 2021, Trevor selects Assertion's debut release "Intermission." Joining Trevor and Shane for this episode are lead vocalist and guitarist Justin Tamminga (Pig Snout, Blind Guides, Dying Trades) and drummer William Goldsmith (Sunny Day Real Estate, Foo Fighters, The Fire Theft). Justin and William share details about William's time away from music, the coming together of Asser...

For Trevor's first pick of 2021 for an album that has "been around awhile," he chooses Kate Bush's 1985 album "Hounds of Love." This is Bush's 5th studio album and shows her expanding her use of the Fairlight synthesizer creating lush landscapes on an album with two distinct halves. The first side of the album, also called "Hounds of Love," depicts love and communication between men and women, mot...

For his first pick of a 2021 album, Shane chooses "Sticky Thumb," an album by 25 year old Lo-Fi artist Paul Castelluzzo, who creates music under the name "Hether." Paul grew up playing Jazz and listening to T. Rex, Beach Boys, Velvet Underground, and The Beatles. Shane and Trevor definitely hear a 60's influence amidst layers of simmering and floating synthesizers and bedroom acoustic guitar. "Sti...

For his first pick of 2021 for an album that has "been around awhile," Shane selected the CSNY classic Deja' Vu, released in 1970. Of all of the albums Shane and Trevor have selected for a deep dive thus far, Deja' Vu may hold the most history for both of them. Trevor and Shane have childhood memories of being exposed to this album by their folks back in the day. Though the songs themselves were f...

On this final episode of 2020, Shane and Trevor each select 5 albums and together compile their top 10 albums of the year. Before doing so, they laid down a few ground rules: 1. They couldn't select an album from 2020 that already had a "deep dive" episode. 2. They wouldn't be ranking their top 5 or the final top 10. and 3. They couldn't both select the same album.   With these self-imposed rules...

On this special episode, Trevor and Shane are joined by Rik Ganju, composer and multi-intrumentalist of Ganfunkel. Ganfunkel is a Musical Collective that defies genre but has elements of jazz, industrial, world, and EDM. This latest EP is a two song work titled "God's Creation." Despite the fact that these songs are instrumental, the music speaks volumes about the chaos of our world today and touc...

For Trevor's final 2020 pick, he selects Canadian singer-songwriter Andy Shauf's new album "Neon Skyline" that was released way back at the beginning of the year in January. Like Trevor's first 2020 selection, this is another concept album. In contrast to his Field Music pick that follows a theme with songs covering many topics, Andy Shauf's 2020 release is a complete story from front to back foll...

This time for Shane's pick of an album that has been around awhile, he chose Marcy Playground's sophomore effort Shapeshifter, released in 1999. Shapeshifter was Marcy Playground's follow-up to their self-titled debut album with one of the most memorable songs of the 90s in "Sex and Candy." Despite the fame of their first album, Shane shares why he considers Shapeshifter to be an even better repre...

On this episode, Trevor and Shane sit down with songwriter Billy Shields to discuss his debut 2020 album Wherever Bound. Billy is a musician, world traveler, baker of some amazing cookies, and an all around wild buccaneer. What started out as a deep appreciation for great musicianship and songwriting blossomed into a friendship between the three, and when this damn Covid pandemic is all over, Shan...

For Trevor's pick of an album that has been around awhile, he chose Sunny Day Real Estate's third album, 1998's How It Feels To Be Something On. This is an album that played a pivotal roll in Trevor's coming of age years as he was living just outside of the band's home city of Seattle at the time he discovered it. For Shane, this was his first time listening to this album, and it was fun for both...

On this special bonus episode and ahead of their deep dive into Trevor's pick of Sunny Day Real Estate's 3rd album, "How it feels to be something on," Shane and Trevor interview Sunny Day Real Estate drummer William Goldsmith and producer Greg Williamson. Greg and William reminisce on their experiences making and contributing to this album, share untold stories of the band, and recall some of thei...

On this episode, Shane selects Awolnation's 2020 release Angel Miners and the Lightning Riders. At first, Trevor wasn't sure it was his style, but before he knew it, he couldn't help singing along to these 10 incredibly catchy tunes created by lead singer and songwriter Aaron Bruno. In addition to being fun genre bending, dance inducing, electro-pop music, Aaron Bruno has constructed a cathartic r...

For Trevor's pick of an album that has "been around awhile," he selected the Beach Boys classic 1966 release "Pet Sounds." Both Trevor and Shane had memories growing up of listening to the Beach Boys, but neither had dived into this iconic album and absorbed it like they knew they should have. It did not disappoint. The history, the stories, the relationships, and everything Brian Wilson led to en...

On this bonus episode, Trevor and Shane interview two lifelong Beach Boys fans Gary Mohr and Doug Paulsen ahead of their deep dive into Brian Wilson's masterpiece Pet Sounds. They have a great time discussing how they first encountered this album and the Beach Boys, their favorite memories surrounding Pet Sounds, and how the album's place in their life has morphed and grown over the years. Though...

On this episode, Shane selects Pinegrove's new album Marigold as his 2020 pick. Shane and Trevor have fun exploring the themes of this album and hear influences that include musicians Deathcab for Cutie and Phil Elverum, as well as literary influences such as George Saunders and William Faulkner. The music itself spans genres from alt country to emo and indie. They appreciate diving into this albu...

On this episode Trevor and Shane dive into Heart's classic 1975 Album Dreamboat Annie. They discuss the amazing origin story that lead to their success, dive into the history of the familial ties and love story, and rediscover classic favorites and tracks that they weren't as familiar with before.  ________________________________________________________________________________________________ HOW...

For Shane's January pick of an older album that has "been around awhile," he selected Jason Isbell's 2015 release "Something More Than Free." Trevor and Shane quickly discovered after 4+ hours of discussing this album that they are both kind of Isbell fanboys. They fortunately managed to condense the episode down to an easily digestible 2.5 hours of content. This was such a great album that contin...

Trevor and Shane begin their journey into deep album dives with Field Music's 7th studio album, "Making a New World," released in January 2020. This concept album based on the after-effects of World War I was inspired by an image from a 1919 publication by the US Department of War. Originally commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to create a sound and light show, Field Music began exploring them...

On this first episode of Album Divers, your hosts Trevor and Shane discuss why they are venturing down this path of music discussion, provide some background info about who they are, and share what listeners can expect from this podcast going forward. They also reminisce about when and where their love of the album format all began.   _______________________________________________________________...

This is a podcast created by two music lovers who still remember listening to albums from start to finish the way the artist intended. Hosts Trevor and Shane give history, track by track analysis, and delve into the music and lyrics of some of the best albums of the past and today as they alternate between an album released this calendar year and one that's been around awhile. The show was born ou...