Injury Reserve Announce New Album, Share Video for New Song “Knees”

Injury Reserve have announced the new album By the Time I Get to Phoenix, which will arrive on September 15. The lead single is “Knees.” Hear it below.

Injury Reserve formed as a trio in 2013, with producer Parker Corey joining rappers Stepa J. Groggs and Ritchie With a T. They released their first mixtape, Live from the Dentist Office, in 2015, which they followed with the 2016 mixtape Floss and their self-titled studio debut in 2019.

By the Time I Get to Phoenix is Injury Reserve’s first album since the June 2020 death of Stepa J. Groggs. According to a press release, the record was largely finished before Groggs died. Injury Reserve wrote in a statement:

While touring Europe in 2019, we had a show in Stockholm that had been booked in the back of an Italian restaurant instead of a typical venue. To match a certain lack of production we pivoted the show into our own improvisatory take on a DJ set and ended up performing a song none of us had heard before, the board recording of which became the grounding for a new album. Over the next few months, we locked in and put together the 11 songs that that album would eventually become. Those early months of 2020 had about as much turmoil for us as one could expect last year, and between the general social upheaval, loss of livelihoods and family tragedy, the record we made carried these weights. Once the tracklist came together and we started to make sense of it, one of the last phone conversations we had with Groggs was over his love for the repurposing of Isaac Haye’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” to title the album. Shortly thereafter we were struck with his loss and of course everything was put on hold, but eventually, we regathered and felt most comfortable finishing this album we had made as it still resonated fully (in some respects even taking on what felt like haunting pre-echoes) and above all else stayed true to his constant insistence while recording to simply “make some weird shit.” All this said obviously this album is dedicated to Jordan Alexander Groggs, aka Stepa J. Groggs with one p better get it right. Typing here feels small in the space of your real physical absence but you, your voice and your words continue to echo around us all thru these recordings and so many others and everything else. Thank you for your time, we love and miss you, of course of course.

Read “Remembering Injury Reserve’s Stepa J. Groggs With Five Key Verses” on the Pitch.

Content

By the Time I Get to Phoenix:

01 Outside
02 Superman That
03 SS San Francisco [ft. Zelooperz]
04 Footwork in a Forest Fire
05 Ground Zero
06 Smoke Don't Clear
07 Top Picks For You
08 Wild Wild West
09 Postpostpartum
10 Knees
11 Bye Storm