Brooklyn’s Radiator King (aka Adam Silvestri) is gearing up to release his new album, A Hollow Triumph After All, on April 28. A Hollow Triumph After All is a genre-bending album, combining folk-punk, anthemic rock & roll, and indie-Americana with the somber yet celebratory spirit of a New Orleans funeral second line. Featuring Brian Viglione (Dresden Dolls, NIN, Violent Femmes) & Franz Nicolay (The Hold Steady, World/Inferno Friendship Society) and channeling Tom Waits and Springsteen’s Nebraska, A Hollow Triumph After All is a celebration of a life well-lived, all the while acknowledging the harsh truth that we’re born to die.
The new single from the project, “After All,” is strikingly somber. Led by its funeral march drums, emotive church organ, and Silvestri’s sorrow-filled rasp (recalling American Aquarium’s BJ Barham), the track is a passionate send-off to a distressed soul. Stream “After All” below.
Barbed wire and black molasses
My palms sweat at the sight of it all
The low down docks of New Orleans
Where they almost trampled my soul
Walking alone down 5th Street
Just $5 that I saved
I tore off my old raincoat
and I left behind my name
Edith can you see me now
Shaking in the cold
Well I’ve gone to meet my brothers
where the Southern meets the Yellow Dog
I watched a Harlem sunset
through the cracks in my attic door
I still hear the dogs bark in the hall where
you marked my height on the wall
