The Final Reconciliation

LINER NOTESThe Yellow Kings present “The Final Reconciliation”1—Reconciliatory Matters2—The Gypsy on Darkened Shores3—Lost in Dim Carcosa4—The Usurper’s Ascent5—Season of the Leech6—Beneath Black Stars7—Behind Pallid Masques8—The Final Reconciliation9—Tatters of the KingThe Yellow Kings are:Johnny Leifthauser (Vocals & Rhythm Guitar)Aidan Cross (Lead Guitar)Hank Jones (Bass)Bobby Stone (Drums, Synth)Management:Reggie AllenSpecial Thanks:Camilla Bierce

-TRACK 1-RECONCILIATORY MATTERSMiles Hargrove peered at the old man through a curtain of cigarette smoke. The lights in the community room were turned down at the aging rock star’s request, but he still wore sunglasses, and Miles realized he could see the cameraman’s reflection in them.“Jody,” the producer said, snapping his fingers. “Can we get a different angle?”Aidan Cross sat back in his seat while the producer sought a better shot. He sucked down the first cigarette in two long drags and chuckled when the thought occurred to him: Maybe this is what Keith Richards felt like.Keith was dead, though. Had been for years. He’d shuffled off to that long-lost Valhalla to spend eternity drinking wine off the tits of beautiful women.Aidan had never met Keith Richards, but he liked to think they would’ve gotten along. Not that it mattered now.The producer, Miles, turned back to his interview subject. “Apologies, Mr. Cross. The low lighting is causing some difficulties. We shoul

-TRACK 2-THE GYPSY ON DARKENED SHORESThe first time I saw Camilla Bierce was in a dive bar called Murphy’s, the local watering hole in some no-name town out West. We were on tour then, supporting the Jesters in Our Court EP. It was our first official release, save for a self-titled demo we’d circulated to all the labels a year before. Most of the songs from that demo—‘The Infernal Machination’ and ‘Holes in the Fabric’ parts one and two, in particular—ended up on the EP, except this time they didn’t sound like they were recorded in Bobby’s basement.The suits at the label were cautiously optimistic at best. Our style of rock was a niche genre for sure—no one wanted 15-minute epic rock journeys anymore, and they hadn’t for at least 30 years—but other bands like Tool, Mastodon, and Opeth had found their audience, and our manager Reggie was able to convince the suits to send us on a small tour.“Let them get their feet wet,” he told them, or at least that’s what he told us he told t

-TRACK 3-LOST IN DIM CARCOSAMost of us had never been to Los Angeles before. I know it was Johnny’s first time, and for Bobby and Hank that tour was their first time journeying farther west than the Mississippi. Personally, I’d only ever been to Los Angeles once when I was a kid, on a family trip to Disney, and it was about the same as I remembered it: smoggy, the sky painted a permanent yellow haze, with traffic backed up on the highway for as far as the eye can see.The place was nothing at all like the movies had led us to believe. The whole goddamn city was a temple built to honor the nameless gods of greed and excess, a money machine that chewed up kids and shit them out every hour. For every star it birthed, ten more were damned to wander the streets and alleys, peddling their bodies for God knows what.And there we were, four southern boys lost in the wilderness. Calling it a culture shock was an understatement.The only one of us who wasn’t enchanted by the promise of th

-TRACK 4-THE USURPER’S ASCENTReggie was gone by the time we woke the next morning. We didn’t see him again for a month, and by that point we were so wrapped up in recording the album that none of us dared bring up what happened. When we woke up in the same room together, we just figured we’d had one hell of a bender the night before, and blacked out. It wasn’t the first time that had happened. For a while I had myself convinced that the blurry memories of that night were nothing more than nightmares, phantoms conjured from my subconscious by the booze.Magical thinking, you know. I think we all knew what had happened, but were too afraid to speak of it. Losing control of yourself is a hard thing to admit. You look back and think: Hey, there’s no way I could’ve done that. That wasn’t me. That was some other guy.But we knew the truth. That morning, Hank, Bobby, and me all booked flights back home for a short vacation. Johnny chose to stay in Los Angeles to start working on the alb