Whitehorse’s Declan O’Donovan today announces his third studio album Amok which is set for release on April 14th and shares the opening track “Within the Pale”. Speaking on the track O’Donovan says, “Within the Pale is a fuzzy, sticky, feel good song about feeling strange. It asks why we’re here and where we’re going, and offers a sparring partner to anyone that’s wrestling with big, bloated questions that don’t have an answer.”
Amok takes sonic cues from the places it was born in, geographically and mentally. It bends, sometimes, toward grandeur, like the vast and mountainous terrain surrounding O’Donovan’s hometown of Whitehorse, where most of the songs were written. It trades in a lushness of sound that recalls the all-encompassing greenery of Vancouver Island, where it was recorded.
Within the earthy, baroque psychedelia of his 3rd album, Amok, Declan O’Donovan meditates on losing track of time. It’s a phenomenon we’re all intimately familiar with — ”a pedestrian and profound thing to do,” as the Yukon songwriter puts it. We all lose track of time, get lost in time, struggle with our places in the world. Amok recognizes the miraculousness and mundanity of existence.
Amok is set for release on April 14th 2023.
