Jeffrey Alexander + The Heavy Lidders share Critical Masses, a new track from their forthcoming album Liquid Donnon, due 12th June via Riot Season Records in the UK and Feeding Tube Records in the US.
Jeffrey Alexander says of the single,“‘Critical Masses’ was the first song I wrote for the new album. I started by listening to our studio improvisations on headphones in a hammock while camping in The Poconos and placing lyrics. About a year later, I mixed the track in a mountain lodge in West Virginia. It’s a song about friendship, innocence, tragedy and loss but also the power of nature (keeping with the settings of its origin).”
Convened in 2019 on Alexander’s relocation back to his native east coast, the Heavy Lidders are the latest hard-touring expression of a guitarist whose tangled discography takes in the long-running Dire Wolves Just Exactly Perfect Sisters Band and, before them, the Iditarod and Black Forest/Black Sea, alongside a stint with Jackie-O Motherfucker and sessions with Kemialliset Ystävät and Avarus. The current core lineup pairs Alexander (guitar, vocals) with guitarist Drew Gardner and bassist Jesse Sheppard (both of Elkhorn) and drummer Scott Verrastro.
According to liner notes by Jesse Jarnow, Liquid Donnon catches the Lidders at their heaviest — “though ‘heavy’ in the Lidderverse being far from a monolithic musical idea”. Jarnow notes: The album cover photo of Alexander’s late friend and album namesake Donnon, was taken at a Dead show at Rich Stadium in Buffalo in 1989, a spirit threading through the songs and weaving unexpectedly into Alexander’s life decades later, emerging especially when Alexander passed through a near-death experience of his own.
Bandcamp: Riot Season | Feeding Tube
The Heavy Lidders previously appeared on KLOF Mixtape No. 49 last summer with Star Power (Sun Flower mix).
A run of UK dates follows in August.
UK Tour Dates:
2nd August — Sheffield, Alder
3rd August — Sowerby Bridge, Puzzle Hall
4th August — Cambridge, Portland Arms
5th August — Stoke-on-Trent, Artisan Tap
6th August — York, The Crescent
7th August — Nottingham, JT Soar
8th August — London, Cafe OTO (Upset The Rhythm)
9th August — Builth Wells, Kozfest 2026
10th August — Hereford, Weirdshire