Tracklist:

1. Old Death
2. And It’s All Guns and Arrows
3. I’ll Bear

This 12″ from Car Colors might be one of the most storied debuts in rock music. It starts with another band called the Wrens, who toiled in relative obscurity from their formation until the release of their third album, The Meadowlands, in 2003, some 14 years later. Charles Bissell is the Wrens’ former singer-songwriter-multiinstrumentalist-producer.

The cover of the debut Car Colors single, “Old Death” (from his forthcoming album, due in early 2024) evokes its spirit one fnal time. Clocking in at over 7 minutes, “Old Death” is an unlikely A-side, but one that makes it clear that Charles has been working on this record for more than a decade. You can hear what we’ve all been missing for the last 20 years, all of the Wrens earmarks and sonic peccadillos you adored, but distilled, matured, caramelized like a mole, through long gestation and layers of produc