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Jan 12, 2022 By Joey Arnone Photography by Aaron Lee and Alex Evans

New Zealand alt-pop group Yumi Zouma have announced the release of a new album, Present Tense, which will be out on March 18 via Polyvinyl. They have also shared a video for a new album single, “In the Eyes Of Our Love.” View the Alex Ross Perry-directed video, along with the album’s tracklist and cover art, below.

“Recorded at 204 bpm, ‘In The Eyes Of Our Love’ is a rip-roaring belter of a track and the fastest song we’ve ever written,” states the band’s Charlie Ryder in a press release. “What started out as an homage to Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift ended up as a love song set against a backdrop of torture and insurrection stoked by the Nixon administration, so if you like songs with two bridges and strong socialist leanings, then ‘In The Eyes Of Our Love’ could be the track for you!”

“Agreeing to make three interconnected videos was something I should have thought about for longer than 15 seconds before agreeing to it,” adds director Perry. “The anxiety of conceptualizing a small story, that can be told without dialogue, and set to music, gripped me from the moment my video call with the band ended. Their thoughts were excellent, specific, and unachievable with the time and resources I would be able to pull together. But I began to feel inspired by the concept of taking these vast ideas and situating them within a single location, transforming the aesthetic, visuals, and mood to match the three different songs. My only chance for success was to rely heavily on a great cast and crew to create these spaces and film them in a way that felt consistently alive and unique. Fortunately for me, they all over-delivered.”

Ryder adds, regarding the new album: “This is our fourth album, so we wanted to pivot slightly, create more extreme versions of songs. Working with other artists helped with that and took us far outside of our normal comfort zone.”

The band previously shared album tracks “Give It Hell” and “Mona Lisa,” which was one of our Songs of the Week. Their most recent album, Truth or Consequences, came out in 2020 via Polyvinyl, and was featured on our Top 100 Albums of 2020 list.

Read our COVID-19 Quarantine Artist Check-In interview with the band’s Charlie Ryder.

In March 2020, we posted our My Firsts interview with the band, which can be read here.

Read our 2017 interview with Yumi Zouma on their second album Willowbank.

Present Tense Tracklist:

1. Give It Hell
2. Mona Lisa
3. If I Had The Heart For Chasing
4. Where The Light Used To Lay
5. Razorblade
6. In The Eyes Of Our Love
7. Of Me And You
8. Honestly, It’s Fine
9. Haunt
10. Astral Projection

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