Storefront Church Announces New Album, Shares New Song 'Coal' (Including Live Video)

Storefront Church Announces New album, Shares New Song 'Coal' (Including Live Video)

Ink & Oil Deadline June 28

April 24, 2024

By Mark Redfern

Photo by Silken Weinberg

Storefront Church (the Los Angeles-based project of Lucas Frank) have announced a new album, Ink & Oiland shared a new song from it, “Coal,” as well as a live video for the song. Ink & Oil is expected to be released on June 28. Check out both the studio and live versions of “Coal” below, followed by the tracklist and album art.

Ink & Oil features the rich, string-heavy “The High Room,” which was shared in March and was one of the songs of the week.

The album was inspired by Frank's great uncle Roger, who was serving a five-year sentence for desertion from the army in 1993 when he disappeared from his cell and was never found, leaving behind only an orange. From there, things get more spooky, as a press release explains in more detail:

“When he was just 5 years old, Lucas began receiving visits from his elusive uncle through vivid, recurring nightmares. Roger would come to Lucas in his room and try to talk to him, but Roger's mouth wouldn't work. like it was stuck. In his hands was a large orange, the skin had peeled off and words were written in black ink on the skin.

“The next few years of his life, spent between Los Angeles, with family on the East Coast, and a lonely Saturday in Connecticut, have been inexplicably haunted by sensory 'manifestations' seemingly linked to his uncle's presence. Images of a black rope hanging in the sky, a flock of black birds swarming inside the supermarket, and phone calls from unknown numbers asking him alarmingly probing questions have all hit Lucas in several places. Stuck in the void between walking nightmares and existential visions, Lucas' perspective changed upon his return to Los Angeles while working on this project. Instead of feeling like visions and dreams were intruders in the night, they became visitors—not always welcome or understood—but accepted as integral parts of his narrative. Ink & Oil.”

Storefront Church's debut album, As We Pass, released in 2021 via Sargent House. The lead single from that album, “After the Alphabets,” featuring DIIV's Cole Smith, was one of the songs of the week. Previously, Storefront Church's “The Gift” was featured on the Netflix soundtrack The Queen's Gambit. Most recently, Frank collaborated with Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier on the track “La Langue Bleue,” which was featured on an episode of the AMC series Monsieur Spade.

Ink & Oil Track List:

1. The High Room
2. Faith in oil
3. Melting Mirror
4. King of the Lobby
5. Burn The Roses
6. Words in the Rind
7. Coal
8. Manhattan Project
9. Orange Grove
10. Divine distraction
11. Shadowboxing
12. Hitting the Glass

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