Were "The Watchtowers"
Dallas Good & Richard Reed Parry
Were “The Watchtowers” is a collaborative album by Dallas Good (of The Sadies) and Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire), released in 2026 after more than a decade of on‑and‑off work and shortly after Good’s unexpected death in 2022. Credited jointly to Dallas Good + Richard Reed Parry and issued first as a Record Store Day “RSD First” vinyl via Yep Roc, the nine‑track, roughly 33‑minute LP represents Good’s final recorded work, long gestating under the working title The Watchtower. The tracklist—Alone Alone, Echo the Part, The Brightest Light, Your Hand and Mine, There’s Time, Hope I Dream Again, Are You Gone (feat. Margaret Atwood), The Hole in the Wall (feat. Neko Case), and Not in This World—unfolds as a sequence of spectral, slow‑burning songs that blend cosmic, psychedelic Americana with chamber‑folk textures.
Musically, Were “The Watchtowers” extends the sound Parry explored when producing The Sadies’ 2022 album Colder Streams: wide, reverberant spaces where tremolo guitars, upright bass, organs, celeste, oboe, French horn, and choral voices float over restrained rhythms. Pieces like Alone Alone and The Brightest Light showcase the duo’s ability to turn grief, longing, and environmental imagery—wind through willows, pummelling rains, vines overgrown—into slowly cresting laments, with Good’s writing and Parry’s arrangements working in close tandem. Guest contributions also play a central role: Margaret Atwood appears on Are You Gone, Neko Case on The Hole in the Wall, and the closing track Not in This World features a fan choir of more than 500 voices, while musicians such as Kurt Vile, Yo La Tengo, Jim Jarmusch, John Doe, Jon Spencer, Scott McCaughey, and Gary Louris add further layers to the album’s communal, elegiac atmosphere. In this configuration, Were “The Watchtowers” feels both like a quietly ambitious, cosmic-Americana song cycle and a deeply felt farewell, capturing the slow, joyous bursts of creativity that defined Good and Parry’s long, intermittently shared project.
Were "The Watchtowers"
Dallas Good & Richard Reed Parry
Were “The Watchtowers” is a collaborative album by Dallas Good (of The Sadies) and Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire), released in 2026 after more than a decade of on‑and‑off work and shortly after Good’s unexpected death in 2022. Credited jointly to Dallas Good + Richard Reed Parry and issued first as a Record Store Day “RSD First” vinyl via Yep Roc, the nine‑track, roughly 33‑minute LP represents Good’s final recorded work, long gestating under the working title The Watchtower. The tracklist—Alone Alone, Echo the Part, The Brightest Light, Your Hand and Mine, There’s Time, Hope I Dream Again, Are You Gone (feat. Margaret Atwood), The Hole in the Wall (feat. Neko Case), and Not in This World—unfolds as a sequence of spectral, slow‑burning songs that blend cosmic, psychedelic Americana with chamber‑folk textures.
Musically, Were “The Watchtowers” extends the sound Parry explored when producing The Sadies’ 2022 album Colder Streams: wide, reverberant spaces where tremolo guitars, upright bass, organs, celeste, oboe, French horn, and choral voices float over restrained rhythms. Pieces like Alone Alone and The Brightest Light showcase the duo’s ability to turn grief, longing, and environmental imagery—wind through willows, pummelling rains, vines overgrown—into slowly cresting laments, with Good’s writing and Parry’s arrangements working in close tandem. Guest contributions also play a central role: Margaret Atwood appears on Are You Gone, Neko Case on The Hole in the Wall, and the closing track Not in This World features a fan choir of more than 500 voices, while musicians such as Kurt Vile, Yo La Tengo, Jim Jarmusch, John Doe, Jon Spencer, Scott McCaughey, and Gary Louris add further layers to the album’s communal, elegiac atmosphere. In this configuration, Were “The Watchtowers” feels both like a quietly ambitious, cosmic-Americana song cycle and a deeply felt farewell, capturing the slow, joyous bursts of creativity that defined Good and Parry’s long, intermittently shared project.