Bloomington, IL's Backyard Tire Fire have just released their new album, The Places We Lived, through independent label Hyena Records. The album is American roots rock through-and-through, echoing the Allman Brothers at times and Tom Petty others, and features much cleaner, clearer production (and more piano) than their previous work.

But even with a more radio-friendly sound, their personality and lyrical content haven't changed. The band made a name for themselves in Asheville and touring the Midwest with simple, slow-life tunes, and those still shine through on The Places We Lived.

"The idea of 'home' is at the core of this record," says Ed Anderson, the band's principal songwriter. "The places we've called home, leaving home, being away and returning home, and the importance of family and friends and the people we love. My objective in the songwriting process is to be honest. I want folks to feel like the tune was written for them and identify with what the song is about.

"There are many nuances in which we attempted to reflect human emotion through sound and arrangement. For example, the chorus of The Places We Lived contains chimes that are representative of an old time doorbell. The chaotic middle section of Time With You signifies the feeling of helplessness that I had when I wrote the tune.

"The loop in Welcome To The Factory was made by using random non-musical objects like a drill-bit pounded on a brake drum or a mic-stand scraping up against an empty reel of tape. It creates a robot-like sound bed that gives off the feeling of working on an assembly line. One Wrong Turn is about an individual that made a bad decision and ended up behind bars. I sang it through a six-foot metal tube with the mic at the opposite end to create the feeling of isolation. These are the kinds of things we're thinking about in the studio. Always looking at the songs on multiple levels."

The time and care that BTF spent in the studio have already been obvious to reviewers, who are just beginning to dive into this album and loving it:

The Places We Lived is inventive, intelligent, genre-crossing good fun, Backyard Tire Fire a band defiantly swimming against the raging current of cookie-cutter corporate rock and alt-country bands. [Blurt]

Take everything you love about Patterson Hood's emotional grit, The Old 97s' classic barnburner footstompers, and the spirit Whiskeytown had when Ryan still had something to prove, and you've already got a good sense of what the band is about: Rockin', drinkin', raisin' hell and kicking ass through the use of well-placed power chords. [Berkeley Place]

Backyard Tire Fire are the choice we make when the extremes always sound too extreme, the bright lights feel too foreign, the money's not important, the beer's on ice and the clothes we like most are the ones that we've had on our bodies for decades and we know what made all of the holes and rough patches in them. [Daytrotter]

Additional Tracks:
Shoulda Shut It
How In The Hell Did You Get Back Here?