We’re delighted to premiere “A Scout’s Prayer (What a Man Knows)”, the hook-y electro-pop first single from Leverage Models’ second full-length album, Whites.
The project was formed by writer/producer Shannon Fields, whose long-running art-performance group “Stars Like Fleas” drew praise in NYC for several years. After disbanding that project, Fields moved to the country and started releasing cassette tapes on Hometapes as the name Leverage Models, as a “form of therapy.” He then joined forces with Brooklyn art-rockers JOBS, Alena Spanger (formerly of Tiny Hazard), and avant-veteran percussionist Jeff Gretz, forming a project that attracted an audience throughout North American tours the next three years. Their self-titled debut album was released in 2013.
Whites was completed in late 2015, though small-label economic troubles and the 2016 American presidential election contributed to delays. “As hard as we worked on that record and wanted it to be heard, I couldn’t keep being entertaining and pushing my record, saying ‘look at me’ every night, in the face of what was happening in the country”, Shannon Fields wrote recently. “So I shelved it. But lately I’ve been feeling isolated in a way that feels unhelpful too. I miss and need the community that comes with performing.”
Whites is phenomenally produced, evident on this track. Synth-bass spurts and sharp vocals comprise the introduction, with the synths evolving gradually into an exciting, hook-y melody alongside the suave vocals. The catching “you’re hardly of the age,” transition marks the entry into the “when the lights go out,” hook. Thematically, the track’s topic is consuming and serious. “The main voice heard in the song is lecturing a child after a hunting accident,” Shannon explains. “He is, like many of the family and church-members I grew up around in rural Missouri, obsessively preparing for the ‘end times’, firm in the belief that they will be raptured by god but not necessarily before suffering in a post-apocalyptic landscape. The child in this song is being instructed. This is a pop song. It’s for dancing.”
The album also features guest contributions from Joseph Shabason (Destroyer, DIANA) and members of The War On Drugs, & Nightlands. The album releases on October 26th, and fifty percent of label and artist proceeds will be donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Pre-order on Bandcamp here.
