Following the release of his highly produced, orchestral masterpiece Like Trees We Grow Up To Be Satellites (The Backwards America), Trevor Montgomery (aka Lazarus) found himself in a conundrum trying to reproduce the emotional and musical depth of that albums songs in a solo live setting. Armed with only an acoustic guitar and an iron will, Lazarus performed skeletal versions of Like Trees songs in front of sold out audiences on a nationwide tour supporting his good friends, Explosions In The Sky. By the end of this tour, Montgomery had decided that Lazarus would never again be a solo affair, at least not in a live setting. He pooled old and new friends from up and down the California coast, loaded them in a van alongside musical soulmates Castanets, and played anywhere and everywhere that would have them. The two groups toured together extensively, rediscovering the positive energy and undeniable electricity of house shows and intimate gigs thrown together at the last minute in a stranger's dilapidated loft in the middle of nowhere. He had his ideal band, his ideal live setting, and now all Montgomery needed was a Lazarus album that fulfilled this awakening. Hawk Medicine is the first Lazarus album written and performed as a group, and it shows. The eccentricities of each member shine brightly, with Montgomery's voice no longer the grounded base, but more of an ominous presence drifting above and below. Produced by the band and engineered in large part by Jason Quever of The Papercuts (for which Montgomery is also a member), Hawk Medicine imagines an alternate world where Bruce Springsteen and Johnny Cash take turns scaring each other with their political ghost stories while driving down a foggy highway at night with the headlights off. In spite of this darkness, Hawk Medicine is undoubtedly the most hopeful Lazarus album yet, and it's this precarious balance that also makes it the most mesmerizing.