Everything is all right — because Motion City Soundtrack are back and better than ever. The Minnesota pop rockers have announced their first album in 10 years, The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World. The project marks Motion City Soundtrack‘s seventh LP and will arrive Sept. 17.
Along with the exciting news, the band has shared the album’s lead single, “She Is Afraid” and an accompanying music video. In the visual, lead singer Justin Pierre, guitarist Joshua Cain, keyboardist
Jesse Johnson, bassist Matthew Taylor, and drummer Tony Thaxton enter a work world inspired by Apple TV+’s Severance and the innie-outie process. Sonically, “She Is Afraid” showcases Motion City Soundtrack’s explosive rock music and catchy hooks. “I love the opening riff,” Pierre said of the track in a statement. “I knew it was one of my favorite things the first time I heard Josh play it.”
“It’s a very interesting thing to feel like we made the most important record of our career this late in the game,” Johnson said. Produced by Sean O’Keefe, who worked on some of the most pivotal pop-punk albums (including Fall Out Boy’s Take This to Your Grave and Hawthorne Heights’ The Silence in Black and White), the album also features FOB’s Patrick Stump and Citizen’s Mat Kerekes. Check out the full tracklist below.
Last year, Motion City Soundtrack shared their first song since their 2015 LP, Panic Stations. The track, “Stop Talking,” was written for the coming-of-age film Dìdi. At the time, Pierre revealed that the band was working on their seventh album. “My hope for this record is that it makes some of you feel like I felt when Superchunk’s Majesty Shredding came,” Pierre wrote on Instagram at the time. “If we can come even 1/10th as close as that, in terms of good vibes, I will consider it a win.”
Now, the band is ready to release their most self-assured record yet with The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World. “If you look at a lot of our past records, it’s about ‘What’s wrong? What am I not getting right? Why do I feel fucking crazy? Why can’t I figure this out’… and I figured it out,” Pierre said. “It’s almost like I felt I didn’t have an identity [in the past] and now by working through the hard stuff, I know who I am.”
Tracklist
“Some Wear a Dark Heart”
“She Is Afraid”
“Particle Physics” (feat. Patrick Stump)
“You Know Who the Fuck We Are”
“Melancholia”
“Your Days Are Numbered” (feat. Mat Kerekes)
“Downer”
“Mi Corazón”
“Bloodline”
“Things”
“Like This” (feat. Sincere Engineer)
“The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World”
