In September 2010, Howling Bells stumbled into the Nevada desert with The Killers’ bassist, Mark Stoermer. Their plan: to begin work on The Loudest Engine (COOKCD546), their raw, psychedelic and sprawling third studio album and sequel to 2009′s Radio Wars. What followed was a creative journey: quickly the Australian-formed, London-based four piece – singer/ guitarist Juanita Stein and her brother Joel (lead guitarist), drummer Glenn Moule, and bassist Brendan Picchio – forged a sonic union with Nevada’s expansive surroundings and Las Vegas’s street-soiled vibe.

“There are spirits out there in the desert,” says Juanita Stein. “Some people are into that and others aren’t, but we could all feel them and were rather inspired. At night we’d go down to the old part of Vegas where the streets are filled with characters – all kinds of folk, you end up having conversations with these old troubadours and their stories can be pretty heartbreaking. We definitely found recording there very inspiring.”

It wasn’t just Juanita who discovered a soulful muse in the band’s new found location. Together they glimpsed downtown whorehouses and casinos from their car window and then laid down the grunge blues of Charlatan. Joel met wrecked souls and train hoppers during a trip to Nashville and wrote the aching lament of Sioux. In the Nevada desert, Juanita was struck with terrors at night and they all watched fighter jets scream overhead by day. They later recorded The Wilderness – an eerie, guitar whirlpool that fades on a surreal cacophony of lights-out-at-the-madhouse animal noises.

More importantly, Nevada’s widescreen vistas and relentless heat allowed Howling Bells to shed the naivety and growing pains of their first two albums – 2006′s critically-acclaimed self-titled debut and then 2009′s Radio Wars. Without a record la.......
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