It’s about bloody time for a new Jenkins record, doncha think? Let’s see, our review of The World Famous Hallelujah Cotton Candy Rent Party ran in May 2006, and there are nine songs on the brand-spankin’ new Elephant Twisters, which works out to about three months per song.

Drummer Adam Brock says the delays were all part of the refinement process. “The first one was sort of a hodgepodge,” he says. “”It was really sort of all over the place.” What he means, specifically, is that the 25-song debut now seems a little jumbled to him. (Our response isn’t printable, but it ends in “Sherlock.”) So for Elephant Twisters, they set out to make something considerably more solid and coherent. That’s not an easy task for a band with four songwriters, but Brock says that aiming for broad tonal consistencies helped bring together songs that might not have played nice with one another otherwise.

Well, that, and also cutting the fat. Plenty of material was dropped for one reason or another, including three that were otherwise recorded and ready to go. The rest have been live staples so long that Brock says he’s already looking ahead. “We got a little tired of it because it took us a long time,” he says. “It doesn’t really feel like a release, because we’ve been playing these songs for so long.” But there’s life left in those outtakes yet: we’re hoping they’ll let us post ‘em here, and of course they’re all still fair game for the face-rocking live shows, where they’ll have to hold their own against the rest of the Jenkins catalog.

Hey, speaking of which…

Here’s the new hotness:
The Nice Jenkins - Cowboy

Older (but still hotness):
The Nice Jenkins - Outside Of York
The Nice Jenkins - Sweet and Filthy

Birdlips opens with sensitive folk-rock, and Marshall Costan’s Awesome Few brings Richmond jams. DJ Steve Richmond will be spinning before the show and between sets, and has every intention of turning the whole thing into a dance party by the end of the night.

Birdlips - Tire Chains
Birdlips - Some Kind Of Death