The Suitcase Junket Embraces ‘Doom-Folk’

The End Is New, the latest effort from the Suitcase Junket, will arrive on Nov. 20 via Renew Records/BMG. The Suitcase Junket is the moniker for multi-instrumentalist Matt Lorenz, who crafts or salvages most of his instruments. Steve Berlin of Los Lobos handled production duties. With its hushed raspy vocals and heavy guitars, the moody first track, “And Then There Was Fire,” comes off as a particularly prescient track as it references climate change. 

“I told Steve [Berlin] I wanted to make a doom-folk record,” says Lorenz. “That’s what I’d started calling my music when people asked. Neither of us knew quite what that meant at the time, but I think we found out with The End is New. There’s a heavy mix of hope and desperation in the sound and lyrically I was trying to be a mirror to society using truth, myth, confessions and stories.”

“Black Holes and Overdoses,” another album highlight, captures the “numbness encountered as we drudge through the unrelenting news cycle, driven by a fierce, rocking blues beat.” “Light a Candle”  features J Mascis on guitar, and “Can’t Look Away” protests the politicization of climate change.

The End is New represents Lorenz’s first album for Renew Records/BMG. Renew is BMG’s recently launched Americana/ Roots based label. The End is New is its third release.

Lorenz tours extensively and plans to be back on the road in 2021 to support the album. Also a visual artist, Lorenz originally designed all the Suitcase Junket album art and merchandise and made the band’s music videos too. He continues to create the visuals for merchandise and to produce some of his videos, now with collaborators.

According to press materials, “He gets very excited about coffee, gardening, bees, dogs, birds, mushrooms, tinctures, making his own wine and maple sugaring season.”