Henry Wagons’ Expecting Company?

Open the door to Henry Wagons’ first solo album and who knows what awaits you. Expecting Company? is a microcosmic look at the human condition shaped as a series of duets on familiar themes: desire, death and pestilence. As frontman extraordinaire to Six Shooter Records’ Aussie imports Wagons, Henry Wagons brings the same swagger, panache, and Elvis-sized charisma to Expecting Company? with a twist: the album features an international list of stellar guests, including Alison Mosshart (The Kills, The Dead Weather) and Six Shooter’s own Jenn Grant.

The songs were written after coming home, sick, injured, “delirious with a bad fever and maimed due to a light bulb exploding in my hand,” Henry says. Resisting the urge to recover in bed, Henry harnessed “the twisted voices” in his head and wrote these songs instead. “They came from a different place, so they required some different voices,” he explains. “Having multiple voices in a song holds a certain power. They can represent a unique synergy and oneness, or have a certain schizophrenia or oppositional battle.”

See Henry and Jenn perform “Give Things A Chance To Mend,” live.

Expecting Company? also includes a surprising reprise of the final track, “Marylou Two,” from Wagons’ Rumble, Shake and Tumble, released by Six Shooter Records in 2011. Here, in the final moments of Expecting Company?, Henry finds himself “back at home, all alone.”

Six Shooter Records welcomes Expecting Company? on January 22, 2013.