The Cactus Blossoms - Minneapolis-based brother duo Jack Torrey and Page Burkum - have announced their new album Every Time I Think About You, to be released August 30, 2024 via their own Walkie Talkie Records. The collection of ten new, original songs finds the brothers - along with longtime bandmates Jeremy Hanson (drums), Jacob Hanson (guitar) and Phillip Hicks (bass) - defying easy categorization as they jump from freewheeling rockers to gentle pop ballads, shedding the weight of expectation and creating a collection that feels timeless and devil-may-care in equal measure.
Every Time I Think About You was recorded at Minneapolis' legendary Creation Audio - where hometown garage-rock heroes The Trashmen cut "Surfin' Bird," and The Replacements made Tim. There, The Cactus Blossoms once again teamed with engineer/mixer Alex Hall (JD McPherson, Nick Lowe) for their most commanding full-band sessions to date. But behind the T. Rex strut of “Keep Walkin” or the “travelin’ light” protagonist in “Is It Any Wonder,” the songs have an itinerant quality.
“Even if you don’t set out to write songs with a theme in mind, one tends to present itself,” says Torrey. “This record keeps returning to the idea of ‘moving on’ — from one place to another, from people and situations that bring you down, from loss and grief.”
In keeping with their Made-in-Minnesota ethos, the cover art for Every Time I Think About You is centered around a painting by one of the state’s most acclaimed painters, George Morrison, a founding figure of Native American modernism: “Spirit Path. New Day. Red Rock Variation: Lake Superior Landscape,” which hangs in the Minnesota Museum of American Art.
Every Time I Think About You follows the release of the group’s 2022 full-length One Day, praised by Holler as a “contender for Americana album of the year.” Also in 2022, The Cactus Blossoms released If Not For You - a covers collection in tribute to their home-state hero Bob Dylan. Previous releases like 2019’s Easy Way saw their “voices blend beautifully to create a rich, vibrant sound” (NPR), with the Minneapolis Star-Tribune adding: “if you don’t visibly swoon at least two dozen times listening to this album, you need to get out and look up at the stars more.”
