Empires recently finished recording their second full length album, Garage Hymns. The band’s self-produced debut album, Howl, garnered a massive amount of attention when they released it on their website back in 2008, and now, with Garage Hymns, Empires feels that they have found the sound they’ve been searching for all along. It’s been a rapid ascent to critical acclaim for the young Empires, who came together in 2006. The band finished Howl in guitarist and producer Max Steger’s studio in March, and their “all over the place” approach had obviously worked out for them: the album garnered thousands of downloads online, including over 15,000 in its first week alone.

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Howl was named one of the top five local albums of 2008 by Metromix Chicago, and Empires spent the rest of 2008 and much of 2009 building a profile locally. They sold out several of Chicago most popular music venues, including Schubas, the Beat Kitchen, and the Subterranean. Then, late in 2009, they went back into Max’s studio to record again, and in 2010 they released a seven-song EP called BANG. The BANG EP, a raucous makeout music video for the title track, and their first SXSW appearance ushered in some good national attention. Empires quietly began demoing the songs that would later become Garage Hymns in the summer of 2010.  “Garage Hymns was figured out mainly in the practice space,” explains Max. “I wanted the recordings to sound more like the band in practice, and I wanted to avoid any slick over-the-top production. We wanted to be as gritty and raw as possible.”