Search - Wrinkle Neck Mules :: I Never Thought It Would Go This Far

Most bands don t make it to their second month much less deep into their second decade. Wrinkle Neck Mules seem to acknowledge both their defiance of the odds and the length of their toil on their sixth studio album, I Never Thought It Would Go This Far. Celebrating 15 plus years together in 2015, the WNM aren t slowing down despite being a study in ts and starts, dichotomy and contrast. They have amassed a long list of bizarre accomplishments that hardly seem capable of attribution to the same band. They ve been ridiculed by Don Imus on live TV, featured in mainstream television commercials, and have recorded with Bonnie Prince Billy. Reviewers called them both ascendant and essential and under the radar. Essentially every term available in the Americana lexicon has been used to describe Wrinkle Neck Mules music: indie rock, Southern rock, roots rock, newgrass, bluegrass, country, alt-country, alt-Americana, and even something called heavy folk metal. They ve earned all of these genre bending descriptions because they often flank their rock framework with country instrumentation and bluegrass-style singing. To further complicate matters, the band splits songwriting and lead vocal duties between Andy Stepanian and Chase Heard, resulting in tunes ranging from rustic and old-time to anthemic rock. On I Never Thought It Would Go This Far, the band does not abandon its heritage but more often steers into lush and epic, often mellow, sonic territory rather than the more back porch stomping grounds of the past. The thirteen tracks were recorded live to analog tape in Barboursville, Virginia over eight days in May, 2014 with the help of engineer and co-producer Rob Evans (Dave Matthews Band, Old Calf) and organ and piano player Mark Goldstein.