''New Gods'' is the second album by indie rock musician

Withered Hand Dan Willson (born 23 July 1974), also known by his stage name Withered Hand, is an Edinburgh-based indie rock musician. He lived in Bishops Stortford during the 1990s and played guitar for local band Tin Foil Circus. His first studio album, ' ...

, released on 10 March 2014. It features appearances from Pam Berry of

Black Tambourine Black Tambourine was an American indie pop band and one of the earliest Slumberland groups of the early 1990s. Formed in Silver Spring, Maryland, the band comprised vocalist Pam Berry and instrumentalists Archie Moore, Brian Nelson and Mike Schu ...

, as well as

Eugene Kelly Eugene Kelly (born 9 August 1965)Eugene Kelly allmusic biography. is a Scottish musician who is a member of the group The Vaselines, a founding member of the now disbanded Eugenius and has had a number of solo releases. Eugene Kelly formed The ...

Scott Hutchison Scott John Hutchison (20 November 1981 – 9 May 2018) was a Scottish singer, songwriter, guitarist and artist. He was the founding member and primary songwriter of the indie rock band Frightened Rabbit, with whom he recorded five studio albums ...

and members of

Belle and Sebastian Belle and Sebastian are a Scottish indie pop band formed in Glasgow in 1996. Led by Stuart Murdoch, the band has released eleven albums. They are often compared with acts such as The Smiths and Nick Drake. The name "Belle and Sebastian" come ...

and

King Creosote Kenny Anderson (born January 1967), known primarily by his stage name King Creosote, is an independent singer-songwriter from Fife, Scotland. To date, Anderson has released over forty albums, with his latest full length, '' Astronaut Meets Apple ...

. It was funded in part by

Creative Scotland Creative Scotland ( gd, Alba Chruthachail ; sco, Creative Scotlan) is the development body for the arts and creative industries in Scotland. Based in Edinburgh, it is an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government. The o ...

. In 2022, a remastered version of the album was released digitally on

Reveal Records __NOTOC__ Reveal Records is a British independent record label. It began as an independent record store in Derby, England. History The record store was opened by Tom Rose in 1999. The store reached its peak in 2005/2006 when it sold virtually ...

, with two bonus demo tracks. It replaced the original version o
Bandcamp

Reception

On the website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which aggregates scores from reviews by well-known critics, the album has a score of 71%, indicating generally favourable reviews. ''

The Quietus ''The Quietus'' is a British online music and pop culture magazine founded by John Doran and Luke Turner. The site is an editorially independent publication led by Doran with a group of freelance journalists and critics. Content ''The Quiet ...

'' Nicola Meighan described it as "wise, but never preaching" and wrote that while Withered Hand's debut album '' Good News'' discussed mainly Christianity-related topics, ''New Gods'' focuses more on "more fiery celestial deities – namely the sun and the stars in the sky".

Accolades

''New Gods'' was nominated for the

Association of Independent Music The Association of Independent Music (AIM) is a non-profit trade body established in 1998 by UK independent record labels to represent the independent record sector, which in 2016 constituted approximately 23% of the UK market. Its members incl ...

's "Best Difficult Second Album" Award, but lost to

Ben Watt Benjamin Brian Thomas Watt (born 6 December 1962) is a British musician, singer, songwriter, author, DJ and radio presenter, best known as one half of the duo Everything but the Girl. Early life Watt was born in Marylebone, London, and grew u ...

's album '' Hendra''.

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...

named it the third best album of 2014 in his year-end list for ''

The Barnes & Noble Review Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 U. ...

''.

Track listing

#Horseshoe #Black Tambourine #Love Over Desire #King of Hollywood #California #Fall Apart #Between True Love and Ruin #Life of Doubt #New Gods #Heart Heart #Not Alone #Horseshoe Demo (2022 Remaster) #California Demo (2022 Remaster)

References

External links

* {{Authority control 2014 albums Withered Hand albums Albums produced by Tony Doogan Slumberland Records albums Fortuna Pop! Records albums