''Stiff'' is the seventh studio album by the band

White Denim White Denim is an American four-piece rock band from Austin, Texas, United States. Their music is influenced by dub, psychedelic rock, blues, punk rock, progressive rock, soul, jazz, experimental rock with home-based recording, jamming appro ...

. It is their first release following the departure of drummer Josh Block and guitarist Austin Jenkins, who left in March 2015 to work on

Leon Bridges Todd Michael "Leon" Bridges (born July 13, 1989) is an American soul singer, songwriter and record producer. He is best known for his 2015 song " Coming Home", which received regular airplay and was also a Top 10 Most Viral Track on Spotify. Brid ...

' debut album ''Coming Home''. Jonathan Horne and Jeff Olson have joined the band after touring with James Petralli on his solo project Bop English. ''Stiff'' was released on March 25, 2016, by

Downtown Records Downtown Records is an American record label based in New York City with offices in Los Angeles. Owned and operated by Josh Deutsch and Terence Lam, the label is distributed by Geffen Records (formerly Interscope Records and The Orchard) in the ...

Background

"I wanted to treat this like a debut record. The band’s still called White Denim and it is because that’s what we’re calling it, essentially, but I definitely felt like we needed to go back-to-basics. It was like we write the tunes, rehearse them for a week or two weeks – we didn’t do a lot pre-production – then just bang it out. It was the first time to go in with a producer from the beginning of a record and finish with a producer as well."

— James Petralli, frontman

Release and promotion

Singles

* "Holda You (I'm Psycho)" — The first single was released along with the album announcement. Art Levy of

NPR Music NPR Music is a project of National Public Radio, an American privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization, that launched in November 2007 to present public radio music programming and original editorial content for music ...

said that the song "simultaneously struts and sprints". * "Ha Ha Ha Ha (Yeah)" — Petralli mentioned

Curtis Mayfield Curtis Lee Mayfield (June 3, 1942 – December 26, 1999) was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer, and one of the most influential musicians behind soul and politically conscious African-American music.

as an influence behind the

soul In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being". Etymology The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...

sound of the track, mentioning – "It really started with me, sitting in my garage, playing around with ''Pusherman''. R&B, in general, is where it’s at for me." * "Had 2 Know (Personal)"

Reception

''Stiff'' was released on March 25, 2016, on

. Mark Demig, who reviewed the album for

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

said "The edgy energy that's long been the band's trademark is present in abundance here, which is welcome news since ''Stiff'' debuts a new White Denim lineup." and added that "The tone here is frequently playful, especially when Petralli lets his blue-eyed soul accents come forth. But the attack is taut and the force of this music is no joke."

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

give the album three out of five stars, concluding "

he group He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

wear their virtuosity proudly and with each album their brand of bluesy, Southern-style boogie-woogie becomes less obscured by experimentation, although whether or not that’s a good thing is a moot point. This is certainly the kind of music punk had to be invented for."

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

awarded Stiff four out of five stars, praising the soul influence on the songwriting – "Live, they may make your knees shake like Robert Plant, but on record the musicianship often eclipses the songs, resulting in a lack of truly memorable bangers. 'Corsicana Lemonade''went some way towards changing that, but on their seventh, the Ethan Johns-produced ''Stiff'', they’ve nailed it by embracing soul – or rather, running into its syrupy-sweet waters."

Accolades

Track listing

Personnel

White Denim

* James Petralli – vocals and guitar * Steve Terebecki – bass, group vocals, synthesizer * Jonathon Horne – guitar, group vocals * Jeff Olson – drums, percussion, synthesizer, group vocals

Live

* Mike St. Clair – trumpet, synthesizer

Additional personnel

*Ethan Johns – producer

Charts

Appearances

"Ha Ha Ha Ha (Yeah)" was featured in the reveal trailer for the

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...

References

{{Authority control Jeff Tweedy 2016 albums White Denim albums Downtown Records albums Albums produced by Ethan Johns