It’s been a bit since Speedy Ortiz’s last album, 2015’s excellent Foil Deer, but they’ve kept busy in the interim. Sadie Dupuis launched her Sad13 synth-pop side project and the band released a companion EP and enough one-offs and covers and demos to tide us over until their next full-length.

And it turns out that extended hiatus can be chalked up to some inter-band soul-searching as well. They originally went into the studio around the time of the 2016 election, but what they had come up with didn’t feel right in light of the results. “The songs on the album that were strictly personal or lovey dovey just didn’t mean anything to me anymore,” Dupuis explains in a press release. “That’s not the kind of music I’ve found healing or motivating in the past few years, and I was surprised I’d written so much of it.” The band also went through some shifts, with the departure of guitarist Devin McKnight and addition of Laser Background’s Andy Molholt.

Today, the band are announcing their third full-length, which is called Twerp Verse, and sharing its lead single “Lucky 88.” It’s a skittering and assured take on generational divide. “I was born with a lucky 88 on my door/ Put down your last claim to fame for me, boy,” Dupuis sings. “I was born in the cold, clotted heart of the storm/ You see that lucky 88 on the door.” That theme is driven home by the great accompanying video, directed by Emily Yoshida, which finds Dupuis tailed by a green gelatinous blob while she tries to outrun her inner anxieties through apps that provide all the necessities of daily life with a little too much convenience.

“For the video, we wanted something evil, glossy, cynical, and camp,” Dupuis says. “Our director Emily Yoshida came up with a concept that addresses our reliance on technology and apps that’s so absorbing, it’s hard to engage with the outside world, even when it is literally being consumed by slime (and, hello, global warming, melting ice, coral bleaching, impending heat death, make no mistake, it IS being consumed by slime).”

Watch and listen via NPR below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Buck Me Off”
02 “Lean In When I Suffer”
03 “Lucky 88″
04 “Can I Kiss You?”
05 “Backslidin'”
06 “Villain”
07 “I’m Blessed”
08 “Sport Death”
09 “Alone With Girls”
10 “Moving In”
11 “You Hate The Title”

TOUR DATES:
03/13-16 Austin, TX @ SXSW
04/21 Lansing, MI @ Stoopfest
05/03 Hamden, CT @ Space Ballroom
05/05 Washington, DC @ Black Cat
05/07 Norfolk, VA @ Charlie’s American Cafe
05/08 Durham, NC @ The Pinhook
05/09 Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade – Purgatory
05/10 Nashville, TN @ The High Watt
05/12 Chicago, IL @ Subterranean
05/13 Detroit, MI @ El Club
05/14 Toronto, ON @ The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern
05/15 Montreal, QC @La Vitrola
05/17 Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
05/29 Lakewood, OH @ Mahall’s
05/30 Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar
06/01 Little Rock, AR @ Stickyz Rock’n’Roll Chicken Shack
06/02 Austin, TX @ Barracuda
06/03 Dallas, TX @ Club Dada
06/05 Phoenix, AZ @ Rebel Lounge
06/06 San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar
06/07 Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo
06/09 Oakland, CA @ Starline Social Club
06/10 San Francisco, CA @ Cafe Du Nord
06/12 Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
06/13 Seattle, WA @ The Vera Project
06/14 Boise, ID @ Neurolux
06/16 Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge
06/17 Omaha, NE @ Reverb
06/19 St. Louis, MO @ Blueberry Hill’s Duck Room
06/20 Indianapolis, IN @ The Hi-Fi

Twerp Verse is out 4/27 via Carpark Records. Pre-order it here.

CREDIT: Shervin Lainez