Glass Animals return this summer time with a brand new album, every track exploring a ‘completely different aspect of affection’

NEW YORK — Glass Animals’ newest album was born thanks to an enormous storm, a home on a cliff and an existential disaster. What emerged from that? A ten-track assortment exploring love.

The indie-pop band’s frontman, songwriter and producer Dave Bayley discovered himself in an Airbnb home excessive on stilts beneath Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles, alone, sick with fever and questioning about Glass Animals’ place within the universe.

Then got here a strong storm: Timber tumbling down the hill, roads flooded and his rented home perched precariously. “My existential disaster went to the subsequent degree,” Bayley says, laughing.

However within the dazed calm that adopted, Bayley noticed individuals emerge from the storm and embrace — households, {couples}, associates, neighbors. “I felt like I used to be sitting in area on this home, wanting down on the entire metropolis.” A musical idea was born.

A number of livid weeks of writing produced the 10-track “I Love You So F(asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk)ing A lot,” a follow-up to their third album, 2020’s “Dreamland,” which bought over 12 million copies. The brand new assortment comes out July 19 by way of Republic Information.

There are songs about longing and ones about previous relationships. One compares like to being hogtied and thrown into the trunk of a Corolla. “Every attempt to sort of contact on a distinct aspect of affection,” Bayley says. “I like attempting to construct a complete world.”

The anthemic “Creatures in Heaven” is the primary single, a reminiscence of a young, intimate second. “You held me like my mom made me only for you/You held me so shut that I broke in two.”

The album title — which could be learn passionately or exasperatedly or 1,000,000 methods in between — comes from the loopy nature of affection. “Every thing is all the time chaotic. You simply must sort of embrace it for what it’s and find it irresistible,” he says. “That’s what pulled me out of that darkish spot.”

“Present Pony,” the primary track, is a desk of contents for the album, a tune a couple of complicated, up-and-down relationship that Bayley grew up witnessing (“All these occasions he did what he happy/Boy, these scars should actually run deep”).

A number of songs lean on area imagery — particularly “A Tear in House (Airlock)” — or the necessity to flee — “On the Run” — or the damaging push-pull of adoration in “Great Nothing.” There are some beautiful strains, like: “I believe we’re fashioned/from outdated Lego/in a bedside drawer/the place the stray issues go.”

Bailey has change into a extra confessional author with every passing Glass Animals album. On “How you can Be a Human Being,” he wrote every track from the attitude of another person. The final tune, “Agnes,” was a couple of good friend of the band who died by suicide. It was Bayley’s most private track on the time.

He pushed that envelope on the subsequent album with the only “Warmth Waves,” a hypnotic, hazy tune that honors a departed good friend whose birthday brings grief every passing June. It hit No. 1 on Billboard’s 2022 year-end Scorching 100 Songs chart, propelled by love on TikTok.

Bailey put it on the finish of the album, “Dreamland,” for a purpose: It was so private that he was scared. “The response from individuals was so supportive and constructive. It sort of gave me the braveness to attempt to push it extra, be extra private and extra open.”

“Warmth Wave” led to new followers — and a Grammy nomination — and other people not solely acknowledge Bailey on the street however come as much as him to ask about his songs and lyrics.

“The questions are sometimes very deep, actually large. So I’ll identical to be in my pajamas strolling my canine and I bought this query, ’What do you imply by this line within the track, ”Agnes?”″

“I’m like, ‘Whoa, it’s 8:30 within the morning. I simply had some cereal and I haven’t showered but.’ But it surely’s fantastic. It’s stored me on my toes for positive.”

Glass Animals — which additionally consists of Drew MacFarlane on guitar and keys, Edmund Irwin-Singer on bass and keys, and drummer Joe Seaward — will hit the highway to assist the brand new album.

The autumn tour kicks off Aug. 7 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and hits such cities as New York Metropolis, Philadelphia, Toronto, Cincinnati, Nashville, Kansas Metropolis, Salt Lake Metropolis, Seattle, Dallas, Phoenix, Purple Rocks Amphitheatre exterior Denver and Austin, Texas.

Glass Animals will spend October and November in Europe, taking part in Paris, Brussels, Warsaw, Berlin, Milan, Zurich, Amsterdam, Dublin, Manchester, Glasgow and ending at London’s huge O2 area on Nov. 7.

The band will combine it up, various every present’s setlist relying on the vibe. Some band’s pre-program every little thing they do dwell, however not Glass Animals, who wish to react to the group, even swapping out songs moments earlier than occurring.

“I truly got here from a DJ background. I began deejaying golf equipment in London after I was actually younger,” Bayley says. “Actually good DJs react to the sensation within the room and also you decide up the tempo slowly typically. Generally you begin with the quick stuff, you carry it down after which up once more.”

According to Glass Animals’ need to attach with listeners, Bayley says he’d be blissful if followers despatched them their setlists. “I’d be very blissful to play with what individuals need. That’s what I really feel our job is. I need to make individuals blissful.”

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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits