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A little over a year ago we decided to record a new album, so we picked a dozen songs (plus two spares) and booked a bunch of fortnightly rehearsals to whip them into shape. For the first time, we had songs written by every member of the band.
Recorded over a handful of summer days, bringing in friends and relatives to contribute new instruments and voices, listening and mixing and mastering and designing artwork … and we finally got here.
This is our third album and the first to feature songs written by all four members. Harder edged than its predecessors (notwithstanding our most luscious ballad yet toward the end of the album), the songs feature more nuanced arrangements, bigger sounds and more guest artists – Lorien Cutler and Tanjo Eve on backing vocals, Kath Potter on flute and sax, and David Carlin on trumpet. Thematically there is a thread of optimism colliding with brutal reality that winds through the music, leavened by whimsy and dark humour.
Head on over to Bandcamp to purchase the digital version to stream or download or to buy a limited edition CD. You can also grab a Let's All Go to Mars stubby holder to keep your beer cold while listening.
You can stream the album in all the usual places once our distributor finally gets around to sending it there (long story… their most recent promise was 8 September but their previous promise didn't hold water). If you follow us on Spotify or Apple Music you'll probably know before we do.
The singles
While working on the album we ended up recording more songs than we could fit on an album of sensible length, so we decided to release a couple as non-album singles before the album is ready. This is the first: a song we wrote about the ongoing impact of the violent theft of land and dispossession of peoples that is the history of this nation and many others around the world. Reconciliation might be hard and the path to it unclear, but until it’s done the Frontier Wars continue.
This is the second, and the lead track from the album. Over our lifetimes we’ve all heard predictions of what the future will be like. What we got was in some cases better, in others not so much. The Future is optimistic that we will be okay if we cooperate rather than compete.
Frontier Wars and The Future were recorded in late 2024 and early 2025 at Soundpark in Northcote, produced by the band and Idge, and mastered by Adam Dempsey.
