Four years after the release of Escape From Evil, Baltimore’s Lower Dens are back with a new album. The indie pop band will let loose The Competition on September 6th through Ribbon Music.
Lower Dens’ fourth record to date explores the unhealthy urgency that competition often brings. Specifically chosen by the group’s lead singer and songwriter Jana Hunter, the record’s title is “a term for a socio-psychological phenomenon this [competition] generates,” explains a press release, “a kind of psychosis that accelerates our insecurities and anxieties to the point of total overload, corroding our intimacies, our communities, and our senses of self.”
(Read: 10 Pop Albums for People Who Hate Pop Music)
Hunter detailed further in a statement:
“The issues that have shaped my life, for better or for worse, have to do with coming from a family and a culture that totally bought into this competitive mindset. I was wild and in a lot of pain as a kid; home life was very bleak, and pop songs were a guaranteed escape to a mental space where beauty, wonder, and love were possible. I wanted to write songs that might have the potential to do that.”
In anticipation of the new album, Lower Dens are sharing the sweeping lead single “Young Republicans”. Check it out below via its official music video directed by Raul Gonzo.
The Competition Artwork:
The Competition Tracklist:
01. Galapagos
02. Hand Of God
03. Two Faced Love
04. Young Republicans
05. Real Thing
06. Buster Keaton
07. I Drive
08. Simple Life
09. Empire Sundown
10. Lucky People
11. In Your House