Moving Walls is now available for pre-order! Available on Amazon Canada, Amazon USA, and Amazon UK. Also available as a digital download on Amazon.com !

Endangered Species Drops This May

April 28, 2011 07:55 PM UTC

Lots of good news for Matthew Good fans this month! If you haven't already heard, "Lights of Endangered Species" is set to be released this May 31st, 2011! A tour to support the new album has also been tentatively scheduled for this September 2011. "Vancouver" also took home a Juno for the best rock album of 2011 last weekend, congratulations to Matthew and the band! This is Matthew Good's fourth Juno award.

UPDATE: Pre-orders are now available: Amazon.ca ($14.99 at the moment). If the price decreases between your order time and the end of the day of the release date, you'll receive the lowest price! If you make an order of $25 or more, the shipping will also be free! Vinyl pre-orders will be available soon.

"Non Populous" and "In a Place of Lesser Men" are streaming now on Matthew Good's website. These two tracks will have to last us through May as the whole album will not be available for streaming like Vancouver was.

Recorded for seven weeks at Vogville studios, Lights of Endangered Species brings a new sound to new and old fans alike. In his recent postings on The Bored, Matthew had this to say:

[This] brings me to the use of guitar. On this record there are songs in which it isn't used at all. The primary instrument on the record is piano. Extraordinary Fades, Lights of Endangered Species, Zero Orchestra - none of them have guitar on them. I do some ethereal feedback stuff on Extraordinary Fades, but it's all happenstance. Further, Shallow's Low and Non Populus only use guitar in a limited capacity, primarily for solos.

In a a recent Chart Magazine article, Good said that "not only does the record include flute and Cor Anglais, but it also features trombone, trumpet, bassoon, clarinet, French horn, and saxophone." Similar to "Avalanche," all of the instruments used in the album were live, not sampled. The piano portions were also played on a 100 year old upright.

When I was writing this record I was listening to a lot of jazz. One of the things that led to was, for example, the use of French Horn in the brass ensemble. That would be because Gil Evans did it with Miles Davis - and it was never really done before that. There is also a lot of weird harmonium sounds that I created by creating a unique clarinet sound that's highly distorted and delayed, though pulled back in most mixes.

While Matthew Good considers Lights of Endangered Species to be the best record that he's ever made, he had some concerns as to how some fans might react to it.

I could bash out an alti- rock record in a few weeks and probably do far better with it. I'd get lots of festival offers, a lot of fringe fans would have something to gravitate towards, and it would be a hell of a lot easier on my nerves given that performing this record is going to be incredibly hard. Four guys on stage bashing away at their instruments is easy - and I'll not lie and say that easy doesn't look enticing from where I'm sitting right now. But the fact remains that I had to make this record. I made a promise to myself fourteen years ago that I would. In fact, I probably could have gone way more off the deep end and people would have been looking at me like I was nuts. Maybe I should have done that. Maybe it should have been that extreme. Unfortunately, I don't really write premeditatedly. I write in the moment - and this is what came out.

Good might not have to worry too much about the album as the pre-orders alone have launched Lights of Endangered Species up to number 24 on the iTunes charts in a matter of days. The album is expected to rise up even higher as the release day approaches.

It isn't about smash hits or using elements from the past that will remind people of the things they liked from the past. It's about doing something that Warne [Livesey] and I always said we'd do, and this was the time to do it.

In regards to the upcoming September tour, fans can expect the full band to join Matthew again this year. A piano player will be added to the current lineup and guitarist Stuart Cameron will also be doubling up with some brass instruments. Sadly, a full orchestra is very unlikely at this point but fans are still in for a hell of a show!

Lights of Endangered Species is set to be released this May 31st, 2011. Pre-orders are currently available through iTunes and Maple Music. Those who order through iTunes will also receive a bonus track, "Darling."

Pre-orders will also be available through our site via Amazon. As always, we will make an effort to provide fans with the lowest real-time price for the album when it becomes available. You can also add us on Twitter @nfnews to be alerted when our pre-orders become available.

Stay tuned daily for more information and concert dates!