Alaskan Americana band Blackwater Railroad Company has spent the last ten years refining their live show and will release a new album,  A Lovely Place to Die, on July 12, 2024. The first single, “Clarity,” is out now. 

Lead vocalist Tyson T. Davis says:

‘Clarity’ is the story of the moment I realized I wanted to marry my wife. We went to the grocery store one day and she started pulling boxes off the shelf and ran around the store with them on her feet. I thought in a moment of clarity that we could keep each other entertained for a lifetime.

I was two years sober and just starting to build a foundation for a healthy life and a relationship with the world around me. There was a clarity that I needed to have in order to even see the opportunity I had with the person in front of me.

Blackwater Railroad Company is made up of Davis (acoustic guitar, lead vocals), Kyle Comeau (keyboards and vocals), Ben Sayers (bass guitar and vocals), Braden Rollins (tenor saxophone, additional vocals), and Will Balcao (drums) as well as frequent guest appearances by fiddle players Rachel DeTemple and Ryan McLaughlin.

Davis adds about the album:

Many of the songs on this album touch on themes of extreme isolation, excess, ardent love, and the emotional swells of performing and getting in tune with the cycle of life in Alaska. We have extremely beautiful summers and dark, cold winters. That has, at times, stressed our relationships with loved ones, substances and productivity.

The recent addition of drums and saxophone have given A Lovely Place to Die a more soulful, old school feeling than their previous releases. To expand the fullness of the album’s sound, the band also recruited members of the Muskeg Collective, a group made up of independently celebrated Juneau musicians and songwriters Annie Bartholomew, Josh Fortenbery, Taylor Vidic, Erin Heist and Andrew Heist, who work together to highlight and celebrate the songwriting community developing in Southeast Alaska.