The Cordials, a Tucson supergroup of sorts, will celebrate the release of their debut album this Saturday at the Whistle Stop Depot.

The band—Laura Kepner-Adney (Silver Thread Trio), Courtney Robbins (Seashell Radio), Cristina Williams (the Modeens) and Winston Watson (Greyhound Soul, Saint Maybe)—got together in 2011 and recorded an eclectic pop-rock album that reflects the band members' accumulated experience as well as a desire to strike out for somewhere new.

At 127 W. Fifth St., the Whistle Stop Depot is an old warehouse converted to a performance space. Doors for the $5 show open at 8, with Sun Bones (formerly Boreas) opening at 9, The Cordials performing at 10 and the Andrew Collberg Band playing at 11. Local draft beer, specialty cocktails and The Chef’s Kitchen food truck will be available.

The Weekly talked to the band for this week's music feature, but also got the rundown of Not Like Yesterday:

1. State of the Union
“It was the first (Cordials) one I wrote,” says Kepner-Adney, the band's singer-guitarist.
“It’s about relationships, between human beings on the planet Earth,” she says, laughing.
Lead guitarist Robbins says the song includes a “delay freakout” that charges at the listener.

2. Lemonade
“‘Lemonade’ is a strange little ditty I came up with a couple years ago,” says singer-bassist Williams, also of the Modeens. “I didn’t really think anything of it. It was just this weird song. I couldn’t get the Modeens interested in it. I played it for the Cordials and it worked. It’s about the heat in Tucson. It’s totally tongue in cheek, a ridiculous little song I never thought would be played, then it turned into this punk song that’s a whole lot of fun to play.”

3. Premature Apocalypse
“I wrote ‘Premature Apocalypse’ after I drove through Joplin (Mo.) after the giant tornado (in May 2011), one of the deadliest tornados in U.S. history. I drove through the day after it happened,” Kepner-Adney says. “I’d been on the road all night and had no idea. We were driving and all of a sudden a billboard was bent in half. A while later there was a building with no roof and then a while later there was a roof. All of the rivers in the area were this brownish-red and it was this apocalyptic scene. On the radio is was just reports upping the number of people who had died.”

4. Gold Adeline
“I wrote for a friend of mine who doesn’t know I wrote it for her. It’s a reassuring song saying ‘You’re going to be OK. Shit happens,’” Kepner-Adney says.
Marco Rosano contributes clarinet and whistle.

5. Falling Sevenths
“The title of the song refers to the chord progression more than the actual lyrics. The title of the album is one of the lyrics on the song.” Kepner-Adney says. “Again, it’s about relationships.”

6. Tangerine Road
“It’s about getting pulled over,” says Kepner-Adney, declining to elaborate. “Also, driving to Phoenix or whatever you’d see that sign and I always thought it was a cool sounding name to do something with.”

7. New York City At Night
“I used to live there,” Williams says. “It’s ironic, I wrote this as kind of like a love song with New York personified as my lover and soon after that I left, for love.”

8. Wildfire Girl
“That’s the one where Courtney goes apeshit on stage when we play it,” Kepner-Adney says.
“It’s so fun to do, like in the 70s, Fleetwood Mac just jamming out for seven minutes,” Williams says.

9. Make It So
“I have an ongoing obsession with Jean Luc Picard,” Kepner-Adney says. “The other title of this is ‘The Sexiest Man in the Universe Besides My Boyfriend.’”

10. Roses Burn Blue
“I found an unused plane ticket in a hotel room in Chicago and I made up a story about it. The ticket was made out to J. Tillman. It’s not really about him, just a coincidence with the name,” Kepner-Adney says. “The way I wrote the song implies that this guy has a tick to Denver and he’s staying a hotel and meets someone who says ‘Don’t go stay with me,’ so he ditches his ticket and stays in Chicago. Part of it has to do with the history of the great Chicago fire. There are a lot of historical references to stuff that happened with the fire and it ties in with what’s happening in the story in the song.”
The song is from the original Cordials recording session, with Robbins on drums.