Product Review

Chicago-based Umphrey's McGee returns this fall with a new studio album, Death By Stereo, available on 9/13 via ATO Records. Over the past 13 years, the group has built a rabid fan base through endless touring and more than 120 shows a year. They have released 11 albums, nearly every live show for 6+ years and sold more than 1.5 million digital tracks. Death By Stereo is the much-anticipated followup album to their critically-acclaimed 2009 studio release Mantis, which was praised in top outlets like Rolling Stone, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Mantis included a groundbreaking pre-order campaign, which sold over 8000 units in the first week and debuted at #62 on the Billboard chart.

Death By Stereo is a hybrid of what makes Umphrey's McGee so appealing to a wide spectrum of music fans. Filled with a healthy combination of focused, hard-hitting rock songs & head bobbing, groove-driven tracks, the record has something for everybody. The new album features a smattering of road-tested fan favorites as well as some of the slickest, unreleased compositions the band has released to date.

Umphrey's McGee's constantly evolving sound channels a wide spectrum of influences while still preselVing their distinct voice through crafty songwriting. With a massive repertoire of originals and note-perlect covers, their live shows are like flipping through the presets on your radio dial. Their A.DD. approach to ''progressive improvisation'' utilizes a set of Zappa-inspired hand signals allowing them to orchestrate their melodic creations on the fly.