Greta Van Fleet: Anthem of the Peaceful Army [REPUBLIC]

Why you'll love it

This Lava / Republic LP includes a two-sided lyric sheet. The album debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, topped the US album sales chart in its first week, and "When the Curtain Falls" went to No. 1 on Mainstream Rock.

This edition

• 120g vinyl
• Lyric sheet insert

About the album

Greta Van Fleet arrived at their first full album with a stack of songs written over the previous three to five years, then mostly ignored them. Once they were in the studio, Josh, Jake and Sam Kiszka and drummer Danny Wagner chose to write fresh material, and about three quarters of the record came together in a short two-week stint in 2018.

They stretched out sonically too. "Anthem" carries a lap steel guitar, "Watching Over" has a guitar rigged to sound like a sitar, and "Age of Man" opens the album with a slow, grand build. Sam called it a concept album about the environment, greed and why people can't all get along, and the title came from a poem Josh wrote on the tour bus, half asleep. Extra songs took shape in a cabin in the woods near Chattanooga, Tennessee, where the band set the drums up in front of a big fireplace. Al Sutton, Marlon Young and Herschel Boone, the team behind their EPs, produced.

"When the Curtain Falls" got them their live network TV debut on The Tonight Show. As for the cabin, the band are convinced it was haunted, and nobody has asked for the ghost's publishing split yet.

Also at Kops: more Greta Van Fleet on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Lava / Republic (cat# B0029008-01), the 2018 album.