For those not in the know, Continental Drifters are a congregation of like-minded, creative musical souls, whose other bands just happened to include The Bangles, The Dream Syndicate, The dB’s, The Cowsills, and more.

From their 1992 debut single “The Mississippi” through 1994’s eponymous debut, 1998’s Vermillion, 2001’s Better Day, and Nineteen Ninety-Three (recorded in 1992 but released a decade later), the Drifters’ lineup may have been fluid, but their sound has always been instantly identifiable, comforting, and fantastic.

White Noise & Lightning: The Best Of Continental Drifters paints the story of the band. The 11-track LP and 15-track CD (featuring a previously unissued scorching 12-minute live version of “Who We Are, Where We Live”) follows the journey across their entire career.

It will be released in conjunction with the publication of Sean Kelly’s White Noise & Lightning: The Continental Drifters Story (coming September 27th from Cool Dog Sound) which chronicles the 10-year journey of the Continental Drifters and follows the band through years of cross-country moves, lineup changes, industry highs and lows, marriages, divorces, and dozens of classic songs.

Just as Kelly’s authorized biography of the band tells the story of a critically acclaimed, commercially overlooked band that became so much more, White Noise & Lightning is not only a great place to start for the uninitiated, but is the perfect soundtrack for this legendary proto-Americana band.

1. The Rain Song
2. Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway
3. Dallas
4. Mezzanine
5. Invisible Boyfriend
6. Match Made In Heaven
7. The Mississippi
8. Get Over It
9. Mixed Messages
10. Don’t Do What I Did
11. Tomorrow’s Gonna Be
12. Na Na
13. Peaceful Waking
14. Drifters
15. Who We Are, Where We Live (Live at the Court Tavern)

This quite marvelous musical experience opens on the all-embracing The Rain Song and the rambunctious Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway, and they are followed by the languishing Dallas, the free-flowing, Dylan-eseque Mezzanine, the low slung Invisible Boyfriend, and then we get a countrified rocking twang that drives both Match Made In Heaven and The Mississippi.

Along next is the power-pop-rocker Get Over It and the melodically rhythmic Mixed Messages and they are followed by a track that sounds, at times, remarkably like an alt-world version of that Friends TV theme, Don’t Do What I Did, the accordion-hued, gentle folk-rock of Tomorrow’s Gonna Be, the album rounding out on the pop-tastic Na Na, the joyously soaring Peaceful Waking, the grooved warmth that flows within Drifters, closing on the previously unissued live track Who We Are, Where We Live.

Official Purchase Link