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Music

The Dears Return with Their First Single in Four Years: "I Used to Pray for the Heavens to Fall"

Back from the brink with a new LP this September and another following in early 2016.

Holy smokes! It's The Dears! It's been a minute (or four years) since the Montreal crew released a note. In the interim since their fifth album and now, singer Murray Lightburn—who founded the band in 1995—confesses he was unsure if The Dears would continue at all. Still, they soldiered on. “When you start a band, you never think of the end," he explains. "When we began work on this album, it was a process that consumed us completely, harkening back to our earliest days. In turn, the record became about sentimentality but in the face of great uncertainty; the concept of eternal love and all its fragility.”

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How's that for lyrical grist? Below is the first single from their forthcoming sixth record. "I Used to Pray for the Heavens to Fall" is classic Dears in some senses—bombastic and soaring, particularly in the outro—while revealing a frayed vulnerability, and optimism too. But there's new ground here too: The verses are densely layered with jazzy flourishes, brass, and nimble guitar licks, yet Lightburn and co. somehow manage to make it feel uncluttered. And then they switch gears again for that pleading, questioning choral refrain.

It seems any grey area regarding the band's future has dissipated—alongside releasing new LP, Times Infinity Volume One, this September, they'll be following it up with volume two in early 2016.

Times Infinity Volume One is out on 9.25 via Pheromone Recordings (CAN) and Dangerbird Records (USA). Pre-order it here.