If there is any band who should be releasing a single in these apocalyptic seeming times then it is the masters of emotional angst and existential threat that are The Dears. Is this not how these days feel: “I unequivocally feel Almost all power drain from us / And now looks like it’s spreading clear across town / I can certainly feel The decay crumbling inside us“?
The Montreal based band have released this timely single in advance of their new album ‘Lovers Rock‘ which digitally hits on May 15th, with vinyl following up on August 21st – and our least favourite virus is the cause of that delay. Singer Murray Lightburn says of this song: “I’ve been trying to get ‘Heart Of An Animal’ on a Dears album for a very long time, but for whatever reason it just never fit. Now it kicks off and sets the overall tone of Lovers Rock. It was by far the most difficult song to sing for me, as it hits the very top of my range.” Of the new album, he adds “there’s a direct line between the sort of doominess of ‘No Cities Left’ and this album. You could go straight from ‘Lovers Rock’ to ‘No Cities Left’ and it’s like they’re interlocked. But it’s a different kind of doom. Around 2001, it felt like, ‘We have no control. We don’t know what’s going to happen next.’ Now it’s a doom that’s within our grasp. It’s in the air. It’s between us. But we do nothing about it.”
