The eclectic Southern Jamrock band Captain Soularcat will celebrate The Rise, their second full-length studio release, with a pair of gigs in Metropolitan Atlanta this weekend. The band will perform at Smiths Olde Bar tonight with opening act Moontower and then they return to their hometown of Rome, Georgia for a Saturday night play at McCrobies. Soularcat gigs have been all too rare lately (the band took time off to write, craft and record the record) and the Southeast portion of their fan base is buzzing about these shows.

The Rise will be the second full-length official release from the band. It was recorded the old fashioned way, live direct to tape at WonderDog Sounds in Marietta, Georgia. ‘We went all organic with this recording’ says lead guitarist Benji Shanks, ‘we did not edit or cut and paste at all, what you hear is what we did live in the studio.
The record captures energetic versions of songs from the singular pen of bassist Scott Warren. Shanks adds, ‘The music on the album moves between blues, country rock and stoner rock all done in a Soularcat style.’
Its heady times for guitarist Shanks, who has quietly become one of the most sought-after players in the scene. He has appeared with a number of local and national artists in the past few predominantly Soularcat-less months. Most recently, he joined Bill Kreutzmann, Butch Trucks, Oteil Burbridge, Chuck Leavell, Jerry Joseph, Col Bruce Hampton and Eric McFadden for a high-spirited Bermuda birthday bash. Report by Rob Turner