Down In The Valley - Music, Movies, Minneapolis & More

**UPDATE sold out, sort of** We always hold a portion of our exclusives for our local customers at our 3 stores in Minnesota. Our buddies Darkside Records might have a few left so hustle over there and smash the pre-order button.   (link below)

Down In The Valley, in conjunction with our record store buds Darkside Records of New York have teamed up for our next exclusive vinyl release - Hop Along's 2015 album Painted Shut!

This exclusive pressing is strictly limited to 300 copies and evenly split between Darkside and Down In The Valley.

Hailing from Philly, Hop Along began as an acoustic freak folk solo project known as Hop Along, Queen Ansleis in 2004, during Frances Quinlan's senior year in high school. In October 2014, Hop Along signed to Saddle Creek Records and released their third studio album.

The album was co-produced, recorded and mixed by John Agnello in at Headroom Studios, in Philadelphia and Fluxivity Studios in Brooklyn. The album's addresses topics such as poverty, abuse and mental illness. The album's seventh track "Powerful Man" is based on an experience Quinlan had as a teenager, where they claim to have witnessed a young child being physically abused by their father. Quinlan admitted that the track was the first time they had felt uneasy about sharing lyrics, due to their personal nature.

"There’s part of me that thinks, is anyone going to care if I yell at this man? [...] There is something about parents hitting their kids, it’s just such a weird thing that we allow [...] The craziest thing was he saw us, looked us in the face, and had no reaction. It just didn’t register that we were any threat. And then he said “She’s not gonna help you.” He felt nothing that we were there. It in no way affected his behavior." -Frances Quinlan

Pitchfork likened the album's style to the "romantic, middle-American indie" of artists such as Bright Eyes and Rilo Kiley, while crediting punk rock for the band's energy.

Release Date: 9/23/22