Fans have been awaiting the follow-up to the Wrens’ 2003 masterpiece The Meadowlands for 12 years now — which is over half of my lifetime (yes, I’m young). Last year, the band finally announced that the new album was completely done. Then, a couple of months ago, they announced that it was completely done again (sensing a pattern here?). Today, they’ve announced it yet again — third time’s the charm, hopefully? — via a post on the band’s official Facebook page. Charles Bissell writes that “it is, from my/our end, completely as-satan’s-my-witnessy all done and all off to mastering.” And the notoriously self-critical Bissell even says that “it actually came out ok…And I hate everything I’m involved in.” There’s still no word on a release date, but they seem pretty serious about it this time! Read the full lengthy post below:

To the last second this record bedevils me. Site or link isn’t working, I’m on vacation finally, here’s what it said (w/ thanks as always):

Realizing that it’s the killer-combo of being not only unimportant in the real goings-on of the world but also, in the ever-going back&forth of “it’s almost done, this part is done” etc., both hard to keep up track of and in those details especially, really pretty boring…

but in my dumb mission to post updates on some tiny portion of the everyday work on the record (and believe me, although arguably it shouldn’t be, it really is every damned day), Sunday morning I finished & sent off the final-of-many versions of the last song to mastering. Which means that in spite of me saying I was done working on it in Dec. due illness, or that things were winding up in April (or Feb..or 2011…) it is, from my/our end, completely as-satan’s-my-witnessy all done and all off to mastering. More shockingly, I think (stress ‘think’) that it actually came out ok. And that’s me saying that. And I hate everything I’m involved in.

An hour later I left on a week vacation w/ the family and although it’s still sinking in, haven’t felt this relieved, this unburdened & happy, in well over the five years spent making/resenting it. Put technically, holy fuck.

So what’s left before you can bit-torrent the crap out of it from some obscure file-sharing site on the dark web?

- Well, it means that the demo-ing is officially over now and actual recording of the album can begin ASAP.
– kidding
– Ok really, so everything’s being mastered now. That’s where they assemble the individually mixed songs into the actual album format, connect the running order the way you want, dot some sonic ‘i’s and cross ‘t’s that you (read: me) messed up making the thing in your (my/our) house, match the levels to make all of the tracks sound like they belong on the same album…that sorta thing. The mastered v. of it will be done by the time I’m home next weekend awaiting a thumbs-up approval, then that goes to the label and they manufacture from there.
– in the meantime some quick artwork will be hashed out.
– After the label gets all that in the next week or two, they’ll set a release date and any number of pretend-fancy wheels start turning, not the least of which is that the label, having an actual record in hand, will be comfortable announcing they’re officially gonna put it out and I can stop referring to them as ‘the label’ (“the wrens” herein and forthwith referred to as “Artist”).
– then in some pan-geologic timeframe: record comes out, we tour for a weekend, we “go away”, ill-chosen solo projects surface, vanity plates are issued, 60th birthdays are feted, reunion tours are scrapped, another documentary about the making of the documentary is announced, Kardashians come & go…the usual.

But yeah, really though, thank you as always for reading, for being at all interested in a next album, for saying ‘hi’ and for your patience.