Since issuing his self-released/funded 2013 debut, High Top Mountain, Sturgill Simpson has become something of an underground/cult Alt. Country super-star and budding actor. Simpson, then, self-released his second album, 2014's Metamodern Sounds In Country Music on High Top Mountain/Loose and signed with Atlantic Records for its follow-up, A Sailor's Guide to Earth (2016.) All the while, Sturgill Simpson has appeared in a handful of films released between 2011-19 including, but not limited to, Orca Park, Black Hog Gut, One Dollar, The Dead Don't Die, Queen & Slim, and most recently, shelved controversial film The Hunt co-starring Betty Gilpin, Emma Roberts, Hilary Swank, and Glenn Howerton. Now, for the first time in his career, Simpson has somehow figured out a way to merge his love of both music and film: his fourth full-length album, SOUND & FURY, will be accompanied by an Anime film of the same name, which was written by Sturgill Simpson himself. SOUND & FURY (the film) will be entirely set to selections from SOUND & FURY (the album) and is being publicly touted as a "futuristic, Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic, Samurai film." Simpson has, thus far, described SOUND & FURY as "a sleazy, steamy Rock "N" Roll record," which, seemingly, abandons the Ryan Adams & The Cardinals meets Smokey Robinson & The Miracles-leaning sound heard across his previous three records.


Sturgill Simpson & Elektra Records have recruited Anime veterans Jumpei Mizusaki (Batman Ninja) and Takashi Okazaki (Afro Samurai) to come on as writer/director and character designer, respectively, for SOUND & FURY; while the accompanying album features members of Sturgill Simpson's current touring band, Bobby Emmett, Chuck Bartels & Miles Miller. Simpson, Emmett, Bartels & Miller all serve as co-producers on SOUND & FURY alongside Bleachers, Mayer Hawthorne & Wavves producer John Hill. Sturgill Simpson recently told Beats 1 radio host Zane Lowe: "I was listening to a lot of Hip-Hop, and Black Sabbath, and The Cars, and old Funk records and things. And I think... we were in Detroit while we were making the record and I was sort of writing it in real time and listening to a lot of Eminem." Although, I would more so compare SOUND & FURY, at least based on lead single "Sing Along," to the musical output of The Black Keys during their 2010-11 breakthrough success of Brothers & El Camino. SOUND & FURY: The Album & Film By Sturgill Simpson will become available Friday, September 27, 2019 on Elektra Records/Netflix.