The Heartland - Two American Kids Growing Up

Sometimes it just works - years of planning and it happened! There perfect drop! The Heartland is BACK and their incredible debut is here and IN HAND on Valentines Day! The stars aligned!

Drop schedule notwithstanding, I really am SO excited to have The Heartland bak for a third time. If you are not a WV OG, you might not know that The Heartland was the SECOND EVER WV release - like I’m talking early enough type of release where their copies actually got stolen and didn’t get shipped out. Where they made like, $100 and Creep made me do 20 test presses. They were there during the WV growing pains, and I thought the ultimate reward for that vote of trust would be doing Frontier in early 2021. Little did I know that WV would be around for ANOTHER four years after that, and an OG10 band could really experience the power of the modern WV machine. Nothing makes me happier than being bale to like, work with one of my favorite bands again and give them the benefit of now 6 years of growth.

Since I got my third chance here with Two American Kids, I knew I really wanted to leave no stone unturned. No mechanic unexplored. No production left on the table! Two American Kids growing Up [In The Heartland] completes an amazing like, reverse order discography from one of my favorites. Make no mistake, I’m a “Stars” guy through and through - so much so that like, after WV001 dropped (which was a play of circumstance) the first project of like, my own choosing - of my wildest dreams, was Stars. And at the time that Frontier was being explored (ha!) I didn’t think the platform was in a place to handle the crazy, lo-fi, grindy spastic little brother to stars, haha.

This album is like, honestly peak millennium grind demo. It’s the ultimate expression of early 2000s mathcore - before matcher became a dirty word or just meant sweep picking and trombone solos. Its my favorite type of WV release, and my favorite type of early work - its the earliest versions of all the best songs on Stars. It gives all this context to one of the best math sassy grindy albums ever made. That “dun dun” opening riff on Blue Period changed the world. It’s this playful orchestration with insane shrieks and the most spastic noodly guitar. There is so much flow and and it just feels so emotive and raw. Like don’t get me wrong, there’;s a reason that Stars is the big dawg (I love some polish on my debuts, SUE ME) but I think hearing all of the best songs from Stars in this kind of more stripped back and raw context makes them feel more human and artful? Sometimes you do want to see the sausage get made! Like they were just little babies! They made this shit in like 2006!

There was nothing at the time (or even in the immediate after) that sounded liek this. The highs are just so piercing, but its juxtaposed with like, instrumentation that is *legible* which is so rare. Even on these early recordings, everyone tis CLEAR and LEGIBLE and has so much breathing room. The lows are guttural - way more so than you’d expect a little white belt sceeeny weeny band to have. YOu get all the “MySpace” overtones in a presentation that is just pure fun. I’m telling you, you forget how HARD this album is, haha. I know a lot of things have been watered down and become tropes because of all this revivalism of the past 10 years, but this material just doesn’t;t sound liek anything else. The Heartland is wholly their own band, commanding their own sound.

Like how many times do I have to write out “wow I love the mathy overtones on this sassy grind record!” In reference to Heartland material. Like, its the third one. You get it. I get it. I’m trying to give some context for this one specifically - if you don’t know what they sound liek at this point, you’re just goin to have to suffer! I don’t know what to tell you! The Heartland rocks, they’re back, its arguably their coolest material. FFO: The Heartland. Lore. Peak MySpace vibes. Deep Cuts. Walks on the Beach. Sunsets. The human condition.

I think the original art is so all over the place, it really gave an awesome opportunity to create something out of left field for this. I finally get to do something weird for the heartland! As much as I love recreating covers, it was so much fun to inject this with a little more abstraction. I wanted something of course not he nose (I’m a ham) so like, “The Heartland” and “two American Kids” was def evoking like, nuclear family. Atomic era. 50a and 60s print. Its the soft, delicate collection of panels that juxtaposed with this crazy logo and insane collage job by Kai at Lab.13. It feels like a turn of the millennium collage job but it has a modern refinement to it as well. Really impressed by the art that di7ide was able to create for this! Plus the color palette really lended itself to some cool records - I really wanted them to have a full tilt WV experience here!

Audio was once again. Handled by Zach over at Third Eye Studios. You might recognize his work from the other two album by The Heartland! But in an even more fun twist (and personal milestone as an Ohio boy) this material was actually originally done by Joey Sturgis lmao. The culture! The lore! WV has a Sturgis! This thing sounds great - you don’t have to listen on YouTube anymore!

These are in hand and ready to ship. Orders go live this valentine’s Day at 1:00pm CST! Don't miss your chance to own a piece of WV and scene history! Thank you again to the fellas in The Heartland for the three-peat! I can’t wait for you to hear and see this!

50 The Sig Did Not Produce a Shadow (Wax Vessel Signature)

50 It’s Your Haunted Sig, You Drag it (Wax Vessel Signature)

50 $150 Worth of Sigs (Wax Vessel Signature)

50 Sig Elanious (Wax Vessel Signature)

100 A Handmade Makes a Cameo Appearance

All of this housed in:

1.5x thickness Matte gatefold jackets

Double sided matte full color insert

Black polylined innersleeves

Gold foil numbering

Stuffed into polybags

Hype Sticker’d

Custom WV Mailers

Matching WV Album art sticker