From Minneapolis to Nashville and back, Flip Rushmore has overcome a 900-mile split to deliver their second major release. Their new EP, Choose Your Villains Wisely, is a fast-paced, politically-charged rock record that examines billionaire space travel (“Waxwing”), the murder of George Floyd (“Platypuseidon”), capital punishment (“NINE”), mass shootings (“The Loathsome Crowded West”), and Wall Street (“Gouda Bear”), amongst many other items on a crowded agenda.
Boston’s Glide Magazine labels the EP as “punk-charged indie rock with no sacrifice for tone or musicianship,” while Two Story Melody calls it “gleefully surreal indie rock.”
Featuring five songs that sit somewhere between Minneapolis-St. Paul’s thriving DIY scene and the arena rock circuit, Choose Your Villains Wisely paints a more serious sonic picture than the band’s debut record, Big, if True. It also showcases a more ambitious collection of instrumental work, fully realized by new guitarist Mike Green and all four founding members: Alex Smith, Dan Klauer, Nick Spielman, and Adam Szczepaniak.
Mostly tracked during the COVID-19 pandemic, the EP also faced the same major hurdle as its predecessor: distance. Smith moved from Minneapolis to Nashville in 2014, and reached out to old friends Klauer, Spielman, and Szczepaniak in the ensuing years to start a new band and record an album. Tracked over several sessions in the Minneapolis area, Big, if True was fully mixed and mastered by the time the group played its debut show in May 2018.
The album, which featured the bittersweet single “That Hollow Sound,” found traction on North American radio, finding its way onto more than 100 terrestrial stations and rising to No. 71 on the Muzooka College Radio charts.
[Kennedy Wilson, ILIUM]
