FACS Announce Wish Defense, The Final Album Engineered By Steve Albini

When the late, great Steve Albini died abruptly and unexpectedly about six months ago, he was still hard at work capturing dynamic recordings of rock bands at his Chicago studio Electrical Audio. The last one he worked on is set for release in February: Wish Defense, the sixth proper LP from the prolific veteran Chicago band FACS, makers of self-described “abstract, modern art rock.”

FACS release so much great music so often that it’s easy to take them for granted, and a factoid like “the final album worked on by Steve Albini” gives us reason to snap back to attention. They tracked two days with Albini before his death, with Sanford Parker stepping in to finish the album using Albini’s notes. Wish Defense also marks the return of original FACS member Jonathan Van Herik on bass, replacing Alianna Kalaba.

A video for the title track is out today. Directed by Joshua Ford, it finds dancer Megan Paradowski moving to the band’s melody-laced scraping post-hardcore. Many colorful shoes are involved too. Watch below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Talking Haunted”
02 “Ordinary Voices”
03 “Wish Defense”
04 “A Room”
05 “Desire Path”
06 “Sometimes Only”
07 “You Future”

Wish Defense is out 2/7 on Trouble In Mind. Pre-order it here.