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Apr 14, 2021 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Michelle Lucille Taylor

Portland indie rock band Far Lands is, most primarily, the outlet for singer/songwriter Andy McFarlane. After debuting in 2017 with Oh What An Honor, Oh What A Drag, McFarlane took once again to the studio, this time collaborating with fellow Portland native Ivan Howard who previously contributed backing vocals to the band’s first album.

With McFarlane’s assistance, the songs took new life, coalescing into the band’s upcoming record, There Be Monsters. The new record expands the band’s horizons, taking their music in lush and shifting directions and bringing to life a newfound optimism and vitality. As McFarlane describes. “The first album was drawn from about ten years of writing,” McFarlane says. “A lot of heavy emotion; processing the death of my parents, the end of my marriage. As I started writing the new album, I began to feel a bigger sense of optimism. I guess it was time to set sadness to rest.”

Far Lands have now returned with one last taste of the upcoming record, “Oh, Molly,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“Oh, Molly” serves as a particularly heartfelt highlight for the record, not only for its alluring grooves, colorful instrumental palette, and feverish hooks but also for its personal meaning to McFarlane. The track’s initially playful melodies burst into striking movement with the refrain, driven by lush horn arrangements and a soulful guitar solo. The band builds to an impassioned high, until the music falls back into a spoken-word section as McFarlane reads a poem written by his late father, crafting a powerful centerpiece for the track.

Howard says of the track, “Have you ever had a grown man read honest heartfelt words to you, alone in a room, just the two of you with nothing but silence all around? It’s a very powerful thing that’ll catch you off guard if you’re not ready for it. Andy caught me off guard when he read a poem he wrote and then another couple his dad wrote. I knew we had to include a reading of his Dad’s poem “Sunset Fever” on the record somehow, it just needed the right world to live in. When we did the music for “Oh, Molly” I knew we had found it a home. The guitars and music are the fever, and the words are the sunset after a brutal but somehow hopeful day. What a blast for me and Andy to make in the studio with Randal, Taylor, Paulie, and the crew.

McFarlane continues, “They say you die the first time at the moment of your physical death and that you die a second death the final time your name is spoken. I guess by including my late father, Tom McFarlane’s poem at the end of “Oh, Molly” I was offering up a little assist in his potential immortality.” Check out the song below and pre-order There Be Monsters, out April 30th via Get Loud Recordings.