The Perlich Post: It's a Continental Drifters trifecta – biography, 'Best Of' & tribute album!

Watch an interview with Sean Kelly who penned the Continental Drifters book "White Noise & Lightning" out now.

White Noise & Lightning: The Best Of The Continental Drifters

Omnivore's new Continental Drifters release White Noise & Lightning is a 15-track CD/11-track LP collection of material spanning their career produced with full cooperation from the band.

“There have been plenty of unquestionably great bands throughout history, but a relatively small number of those bands have a real distinctiveness to their sound and makeup. Once you get to know the Continental Drifters, it becomes apparent that they possess that rare singularity.” — Sean Kelly from his liner notes

Continental Drifters are a congregation of like-minded, creative musical souls, whose other bands just happened to include The Bangles, The Dream Syndicate, The dB’s, The Cowsills, and more. From their 1992 debut single “The Mississippi” through 1994’s eponymous debut, 1998’s Vermillion, 2001’s Better Day, and Nineteen Ninety-Three (recorded in 1992 but released a decade later), the Drifters’ lineup may have been fluid, but their sound has always been instantly identifiable, comforting, and fantastic.

White Noise & Lightning: The Best Of Continental Drifters paints the story of the band. The 11-track LP and 15-track CD (featuring a previously unissued scorching 12-minute live version of “Who We Are, Where We Live”) follows the journey across their entire career. It will be released in conjunction with the publication of Sean Kelly’s White Noise & Lightning: The Continental Drifters Story (coming September 27 from Cool Dog Sound) which chronicles the 10-year journey of the Continental Drifters and follows the band through years of cross-country moves, lineup changes, industry highs and lows, marriages, divorces, and dozens of classic songs.

Just as Kelly’s authorized biography of the band tells the story of a critically acclaimed, commercially overlooked band that became so much more, White Noise & Lightning is not only a great place to start for the uninitiated, but is the perfect soundtrack for this legendary proto-Americana band.

Get a copy of White Noise & Lightning: The Best of the Continental Drifters directly from Omnivore Recordings right here. Check out the CD tracklisting (with four more songs than the vinyl version) below followed by an interview with biographer Sean Kelly and a few Continental Drifters performance clips. There's also a link to a Continental Drifters chat about the new releases on Facebook moderated by Brett Milano on Sunday (September 29) at 6 pm Eastern.