“This is my pandemic depression song. I feel like everyone gets one.”. The Wonder Years vocalist Dan Campbell describes the band’s new song out today with unflinching honesty, and rightfully so. Written in snapshots over the course of several months, ‘Low Tide’ captures a fraction of the many questions and fears that ran through theirs––and likely several other artists and creatives––minds over the last few years.
“It’s searching for some semblance of normalcy through small, newly formed rituals. It’s being unsure if I’ll ever get to do the thing I love again, if live music will ever come back. It’s deciding to just give up and then deciding not to give up and then deciding to give up again in alternating intervals. It’s watching old movies and unconsciously thinking “Oh my god, where are your masks?” when people are in public places because a deep anxiety now exists within me that may never fully leave. You know, all the normal stuff.“
‘Low Tide’ is the latest track to be released from The Wonder Years’ highly-anticipated seventh studio album, The Hum Goes On Forever. On every level, it finds the band facing an onslaught of things outside of their control; a scenario that’s only further exasperated by the fact that it’s also the first album they’ve made since Campbell became a father. Between pre-vaccine pandemic logistics, anxiety, postpartum depression, inherited trauma, and a band searching for their deeper existential purpose, The Hum Goes On Forever was undoubtedly the most challenging record The Wonder Years has ever made. And while it may have taken them hell to get there, but the resulting music speaks for itself.
Named for a poem in the booklet for their 2018 album Sister Cities, The Hum Goes On Forever is a self-referencing masterpiece, and it finds The Wonder Years at their absolute, unequivocal peak. It’s a revealing representation of how the six members have all grown together as musicians; they know when to be restrained and when to explode, filling in space and emptiness as needed to create a record that mirrors the heart-torn urgency at its core.
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