Prison pull up with their third album, Big Rigs on the BQE, out July 31st on Drag City, and it lands a long way from last year’s Downstate or 2023’s Upstate. Where those leaned on relentless jamming, this one stretches into two side-long trips, tracked at a Sunset Park studio with the highway in view through the windows. You can hear the first of them today: the lead cut Sunrise Highway arrives with a video from Johnny Celentano and Cliff Elor.
In his review of the latest Jeff Parker ETA IVtet release, KLOF’s Thomas Blake said of the album, which is also two side-long trips, “It might sound like a truism, but we need this kind of music more than ever in a time of diminishing attention spans and the easy temptations of doomscrolling. We need to go deep every so often, to a place constructed with care and attention and absolute creative freedom, by people who understand each other innately as human beings and artists.” If this is a growing trend, then count me in if these are the results.
The single edit is a fast, garage-bred psych charge, its screaming drone built live from guitars, bass, drums, fuzz organ and vocals. Wheels at full tilt, percussion boiling, guitars howling, the band tear into Sunrise Highway at a pace that threatens to dump the whole rig into the East River. The video keeps up with the racket: a blacklight crawl through the highway underbelly, all sinister reapers and burning six-strings.
Big Rigs on the BQE gathers Prison vets Sarim Al-Rawi, Matt Lilly and Paul Major of Endless Boogie on guitar and drums, joined by Mike Donovan on fuzz organ, Ryan Sawyer on percussion, and Downstate‘s Matt Leibowitz on bass and synth. Studio hand Adam Reich engineered and mixed, and scored a couple of FX and remix passages across both sides. Donovan, whose 2013 solo debut Wot KLOF covered at the time, is one of several players bringing long histories to the room.
What comes out is an unhitched snapshot of Prison’s live show, each player caught in equal parts battle and play, powered by a scrum of Groundhogs, the Velvet Underground, Pink Fairies, Good Rats and CAN.
Hit the road with Big Rigs on the BQE on July 31st via Drag City.
Pre-Order Big Rigs on the BQE: https://lnk.to/bigrigs
Prison US Performances 2026
June 2nd – Brooklyn, NY @ Union Pool
(w/ Ar•kaiks, Street Fruit, DJ Mikey Post)
June 20th – Brooklyn, NY @ Mama Tried
(w/ Emily Robb and the ER Band, Stiff Curls)