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Feb 16, 2023 By Mark Redfern

The New Pornographers are releasing a new album, Continue as a Guest, on March 31 via Merge, their first for the label. Now they have shared its second single, “Angelcover.” Listen below, followed by the band’s upcoming tour dates.

“I pictured this one as a weird little George Saunders-esque sketch, a snapshot,” says frontman Carl Newman (aka A.C. Newman) in a press release. “I found myself a lot more concerned with performance and/or delivery, changing melody and phrasing to get a better performance, less concerned, less precious about the original melody or lyric that I wrote. With that in mind, I had the idea of angels visiting me in the night with the message that ‘melody ain’t got nothing on delivery.’ Kind of a fever dream, where feelings take on their own personality and shape.”

Previously they shared the album’s first single, “Really Really Light,” via a music video. “Really Really Light” was one of our Songs of the Week.

The New Pornographers’ last album was 2019’s In the Morse Code of Brake Lights, released via the band’s own Collected Work imprint, in partnership with Concord. After touring for that album finished, Newman began writing the new album at his home in Woodstock, NY. The lineup for this album was Newman, Neko Case, Kathryn Calder, John Collins, Todd Fancey, and Joe Seiders, as well as contributions from saxophonist Zach Djanikian. Sadie Dupuis (Speedy Ortiz, Sad13) co-wrote the song “Firework in the Falling Snow.”

A previous press release said Continue as a Guest deals with “themes of isolation and collapse, following the ambivalence of day-to-day life during the pandemic and the endless pitfalls of living online” but that the title track “also addresses the continually rolling concerns that come with being in a band for so long.”

“The idea of continuing as a guest felt very apropos to the times,” Newman explained. “Feeling out of place in culture, in society—not feeling like a part of any zeitgeist, but happy to be separate and living your simple life, your long fade-out. Find your own little nowhere, find some space to fall apart, continue as a guest.”

Read our 2017 interview with The New Pornographers’ Carl Newman on Whiteout Conditions.

The New Pornographers Tour Dates:

April 19—Asheville, NC—Salvage Station*
April 20—Atlanta, GA—Variety Playhouse*
April 21—New Orleans, LA—Tipitina’s*
April 22—Houston, TX—White Oak Music Hall*
April 23—Dallas, TX—Studio at The Factory*
April 25—Austin, TX—Paramount*
April 26—Oklahoma City, OK—Tower Theatre*
April 27—St. Louis, MO—Sheldon Concert Hall*
April 28—Omaha, NE—The Waiting Room*
April 29—Kansas City, MO—The Truman*
April 30—Denver, CO—Gothic Theatre*
May 3—St. Paul, MN—The Fitzgerald*
May 4—Milwaukee, WI—Turner Hall*
May 5—Chicago, IL—Thalia Hall*
May 6—Chicago, IL— Thalia Hall*
May 8—Cincinnati, OH—Memorial Hall*
May 9—Columbus, OH—Newport Music Hall*
May 11—Detroit, MI—El Club*
May 12—Toronto, ON—Danforth*
May 13—Burlington, VT—Higher Ground Ballroom*
May 14—Norwalk, CT— Wall Street Theater*
May 15—Boston, MA—Royale*
May 17—New York, NY—Brooklyn Steel*
May 18—Philadelphia, PA—Union Transfer*
May 19—Washington, DC—9:30 Club*
May 21—Saxapahaw, NC—Haw River Ballroom*

*with Wild Pink

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