The Black Angels Biography

The Black Angels currently encloses Stephanie Bailey, Christian Bland, Alex Maas, Kyle Hunt, and Jake Garcia. They chose their name inspired by a Velvet Underground song, “The Black Angel’s Death Song.” They gained popularity using MySpace.

Early Years

They released the debut album Passover in 2006. With its psychedelic rock sound, it was fairly well received. Next for The Black Angels was Directions to See a Ghost in 2008. Songs from this album were used for TV series like The Good Wife, Longmire and in the movie The Limits of Control.

Further Career

The Black Angels together with The Reverberation Appreciation Society organised multiple editions of the festival Austin Psych Fest. In the 2010 edition, 43 bands took part in it, including names like The Raveonettes, The Warlocks and Warpaint. One year later, the festival included 55 bands and was held at the Seaholm Powerplant, the last event this location saw. The Black Angels issued the album Phosphene Dream in 2010. It was rated 70/100 by Metacritic. Indigo Meadow followed in 2013. One of their most successful editions, the 8th Austin Psych Fest (renamed Levitation) brought together names like Tame Impala, The Flamings Lips and The Jesus and Mary Chain. The Black Angels’ 2017 album was titled Death Song and it peaked at number 94 on the US Albums chart.

Photo credit: Damian Tsutsumida