with you in spirit, the fourth Balance and Composure LP, is an arresting, atmospheric collection of melodic post-punk and towering rock. Due out October 4 on long-time collaborator and Grammy-nominated producer Will Yip’s Memory Music, it’s the band’s first LP in eight years, and a thrilling full-length comeback after their four-year hiatus. It thunders and stirs, dipping between beautiful, crystalline arrangements and punishing, earth-shaking climaxes; in between all, a gripping, near-physical tension crackles and growls and grooves, waiting to rip open.
It’s an intensely self-reflective record for vocalist and guitarist Jon Simmons, an uprooting and examination of the supports on which a life is built. Preemptive grief, wrestling with god and faith, familial responsibility, familial mortality—these are the things Simmons was carrying while writing this material. They’re also things he was trying, for better and worse, to avoid—hence the record’s title.
with you in spirit feels like the work of songwriters reaching new heights, exploring new depths. Sometimes, the record itself feels like a band grappling with its own avoidance, its own mortality, and deciding to face these things the only way they know how. Balance and Composure are with us in spirit, yes, but in the flesh, too, for now.
Tracklist:
1restless
2ain't it sweet
3any means
4cross to bear
5believe the hype
6lead foot
7sorrow machine
8a little of myself
9closer to god
10with you in spirit
*Cloudy Lavender has become solid Colour Lavender after an error at pressing plant. All customers who ordered cloudy lavender were sent an email*