Assassins did what many bands do: they grabbed a moment out of the air and slammed it onto tape machines and hard drives with relentlessness, cunning, and an attitude. It was in Chicago, mid-2000s, and though there was energy in the music scene, it wasn't coalescing into anything you could use as a heading in the musical encyclopedia. Drag City, Thrill Jockey, Bloodshot, Tortoise, Andrew Bird, 90 Day Men -- amazing labels and bands, but discrete and siloed and separated by boundaries that weren't very real. In the midst of that complicated morass, Assassins generated a collection of songs that became the album You Will Changed Us. And it did. There was confidence built into the fabric of the project: five members, two singers, massive synced video walls, and samples streaming from laptops swirling in three dimensions around the stage. They could go from subtle atmospheric moments to a gargantuan wall of sound instantly. It was hard to do -- months in cold practice rooms troubleshooting sections of songs or reworking synthesizer patches put the band through a self-imposed boot camp. And it brought them together as a sort of hive-mind focused on one thing: that these songs could connect. It was fun, loud, drunken, and rewarding -- that time together, before the record deal, before the tragic let down of being traded and gobbled up by the major label system. The years after that got more difficult, more complicated, more human. The musical journey of the Assassins has ended. With the release of their second and final album, The Year That Never Came, you finally get to hear, and feel, the final statements of their inspiring chemistry. In July of 2021, founding member, songwriter and singer Joe Cassidy unexpectedly passed away. The Year That Never Came is the culmination and end point of a collaboration that started in the early 2000s with a chance meeting and excited conversation with Aaron Miller at a gig in Chicago. Quickly joined by David Golitko on keyboards, Merritt Lear on vocals and guitar, and Alex Kemp on bass. It was Miller who saw Joe Cassidy's song writing in a new context. Cassidy had been known for his beautiful, post-pop inflected Butterfly Child, a thoughtful, regal project where Joe's emotions could soar. Miller saw a different context for that voice -- not dreamy, but immediate, not just hopeful, but demanding. 180 gram red vinyl; includes digital download card.