In many ways, new alhambra is an auditory homage to what has shaped lead singer Mathew Lee Cothran’s life. Its title, as any hardcore pro-wrestling fan will recognize, credits the Philadelphia arena that birthed its most legendary and extreme version of it, and the use of samples from wrestling shows and late night televangelists serve as a reference to his upbringing. The album was characteristically made with outdated equipment and limited by only one microphone, with Mike “Dr. Vink” Roberts playing an essential role on bass that enriches the rockier resonation in comparison to elvis depressedly’s previous releases. Cothran and Delaney were constantly on the move during the recording process thanks to their new found career freedom, but none of it takes away from new alhambra fully texturized shift toward brightly melancholic noise-pop inspired by Cothran’s favorite un- sung heroes such as Waterboys, Prefab Sprout and Emperor X.
