Indie-rock staples Johnny Foreigner turn ten years old this autumn. "Not like, indie band ten years where the first year is the only good album and the tenth is the reunion tour playing that album," lead singer Alexei Berrow points out, "Ten years of writing and playing and long-haul flighting and being a mostly happy mostly functional not completely unsuccessful brokeass working cottage industry/mobile entertainment unit."To put that into context: they've been around long enough to have played Club NME, been described as "tweecore" when that was a term still being used sincerely, and have a fan-run Tumblr called "Fuck Yeah Johnny Foreigner". They have been there through our highs, lows, first kisses, last drinks, and breakups - crafting anthems out of cultural chaos and emotional turmoil for those times when you just need to chuck your earplugs and your concerns in the bin and dance it out. This year the foursome release their fifth studio album called Mono No Aware, and it couldn't be coming at a better time. You can watch the video for the first single "If You Can't Be Honest, Be Awesome", premiering below. I won't spoil it for you, but the first thing you see is "god bless our NHS" scrawled on a guitar and it's the kind of song whose ending feels like it should come accompanied by a confetti explosion.Alexei says: "This was the easiest video shoot we've ever done, we just hung a green sheet on a wall in our studio and pretend to play for an afternoon. Slightly worried that our progressively more stoned eyes mess with the continuity but we also forgot about the big green X taped on Kel's amp so w/e."Give it a watch.Mono No Aware will be released on August 26 via Alcopop! Records. Pre-order the single here.
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