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Dunedin Free Press/Brennan Ink
En
Route to this year’s Harvest of Hope festival and on the heels of their
newest release American Ghetto, Portugal. The Man graced the Crowbar
in Tampa on Wednesday.
Portugal’s bass player, Zack Carothers, credits front man and guitarist
John Baldwin Gourley with the experimentation with outtakes and edits from their
previous album that inspired the latest brew.
“It was mostly John at the beginning,” said Carothers. “He
took pieces of audio and b-roll from our album The Satanic Satanist and looped
them together.”
When Gourley finished, the rest of the band flew later to record their parts,
said Carothers.
“We’ve never really done anything like that,” said Carothers.
The album released on March 2 in MP3 format on iTunes and Amazon.com.
“We’ll have physical CDs and vinyl in stores on May 11,” said
Carothers.
In the past, there’s been sufficient comparison of PTM to the progressive-rock
band Mars Volta due to the similarities in singers, but Carothers said the new
album is a different avenue for the band.
“I think with this album, it will widen the gap a little between us and
The Mars Volta,” Carothers said.
He said the band doesn’t mind the parallel at all due to the fact that
they’ve played numerous shows collectively, and have a great amount of
respect for their music.
Carothers and lead singer Gourley started out together in the emo/screamo band
Anatomy of a Ghost, but the band broke up in 2004.
“We started Portugal pretty much the day after Anatomy ended,” said
Carothers.
In April, PTM plays the Coachella festival in California. While they’ve
never played there before, Carothers said he enjoyed a family reunion at the
festival in 2007.
“The last time I was at Coachella, it was to see Rage Against The Machine,”
said Carothers. “My whole family came out to the show.”
Gourley and Carothers both hail from Alaska, while keys player Ryan Neighbors,
and drummer Jason Sechrist represent Salem and Portland, Oregon respectively.
Portugal has received its fair share of merits over the years.
In 2008 Alternative Press included PTM’s album Censored Colors on its
“10 Essential Albums
of 2008,” and affectionately called them “indie darlings.”
Carothers and company hope to garner the same attention with American Ghetto.
