Produced by Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, First Aid Kit) and recorded with an Omaha allstar team of musicians including Conor Oberst and members of Bright Eyes, The Faint, and Cursive, Cold Snap (2016) is Anthony D'Amato's most ambitious, incisive, and sophisticated collection yet, with a larger-than-life sound propelled by dual drummers, explosive guitars, infectious hooks, and erudite lyrics. Written primarily during a touring hiatus forced by a broken finger, the songs explore the schisms between perception and reality, projection and truth, who we are and how we're seen.
The record follows his 2014 New West debut, The Shipwreck From The Shore, which was inspired in part by his time studying with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish poet Paul Muldoon and earned raves on both sides of the pond, with NPR lauding that "he writes in the tradition of Bruce Springsteen or Josh Ritter" and Uncut proclaiming that his songwriting "echoes with early Bob Dylan." USA Today declared that it "strikes every right note," SPIN praised the way he "turns heartbreak into cheery folk," and Entertainment Weekly said the music "calls to mind Simon & Garfunkel's more amped-up moments."
Songs from the record collectively cracked more than two million plays on Spotify and turned up on ABC's hit series Nashville, while the album earned additional love everywhere from the New York Times and WSJ to NY Mag and Billboard. D'Amato hit the road hard for a year straight to promote the album, touring on three continents and sharing bills with Ben Folds, Josh Ritter, Rhett Miller, Justin Townes Earle, Bleachers, and more along the way, as well as performing at the Americana Festival in Nashville (where his set was listed among NPR's favorite performances of the year) and Mumford & Sons' Gentleman of the Road Stopover.