Empty Country

Generating a towering wall of guitars and keyboards that mirrors the complicated, often desperate lives of his characters, Empty Country is a powerful indie rock band led by Joseph D’Agostino, who previously fronted the celebrated indie group Cymbals Eat Guitars. Empty Country’s rich blend of melody and dissonance is all the more impressive as D’Agostino handles most of the instruments himself for his studio sessions, often with only a rhythm section to help him build his sounds. 2020′s Empty Country introduced the project and marked D’Agostino’s shift as a lyricist from autobiographical themes to character-driven storytelling, while 2023′s Empty Country II sounded harder, deeper, and more emotionally intense. In late 2017, after nearly ten years of touring and recording, Joseph D’Agostino decided it was time to break up Cymbals Eat Guitars, believing the band had creatively run its course. They played a final concert at New York’s Bowery Ballroom in December 2017 and split without making any formal announcement, leaving some fans to wonder if another album was in the making. Instead, D’Agostino retreated to his home in Philadelphia and began blocking out a new project, matching melodically ambitious melodies and dense arrangements with lyrics that formed impressionistic character studies of people struggling with life in a variety of ways. While the album was conceived as a solo project, D’Agostino opted to release it under the rubric of Empty Country, the name taken from a Cymbals Eat Guitars song. D’Agostino handled lead vocals, guitar, and keyboards on the sessions, which he co-produced with Kyle Gilbride of Swearin'. A number of friends and admirers helped, including one-time Cymbals Eat Guitars drummer Charlotte Anne Dole, bassist Patrick Dole (Charlotte’s brother), Zena Kay of Angel Olsen on guitar and pedal steel, and Rachel Browne (D’Agostino’s wife and lead singer with Field Mouse) contributed backing vocals, as well as photographing and designing the album’s cover. Get Better Records issued Empty Country in 2020, and the album was well received by critics, though a supporting tour had to be canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic that put the live music industry on pause. It wasn’t until May 2022 that Empty Country made their live debut with a concert in Brooklyn, New York, with D’Agostino accompanied by a seven-piece band. By this time, D’Agostino and Browne had relocated to a small town in New England, where the conservative politics of some of his neighbors made him ponder America’s growing cultural divide. The experience helped inform the songs on Empty Country II, his second album with the project, recorded during two weeks of sessions at the Fidelitorium, the Kernersville, North Carolina recording studio owned by one-time R.E.M. producer and power pop icon Mitch Easter (who pitched in on percussion on one track). John Agnello engineered and co-produced the album, with D’Agostino joined once again by Charlotte Anne Dole, Patrick Dole, and Rachel Browne. ~ Mark Deming