Brooklyn synth-pop band Nation Of Language are already getting ready to follow up last year’s excellent debut album Introduction, Presence with a new one called A Way Forward. They shared lead single “Across That Fine Line” last month, and now they’re giving us another taste of the record with the spacey “Wounds Of Love.” As frontman Ian Devaney explains:

“Wounds Of Love” is a song about getting caught in a mental feedback loop when a relationship ends. It’s an endless inner argument — wanting to move on defiantly, but feeling utterly lost about how to do it when the other person has informed so much about how you see yourself. For every bit of progress there’s just as much retreating, and eventually it seems like this back-and-forth becomes the new root of your identity — still tied to the same person, just without them actually being there.

During its creation, the song was really born out of the main riff — I was experimenting with synth sounds and delay pedals, trying to find something that felt kind of like Man Machine-era Kraftwerk, and this simple melody just flowed out. At first the urge was to go very robotic with it, but a laid-back groove fell into place and gave everything a really warm, spacey, stoned feeling, which felt like it amplified the emotional haze that the song deals with.

Later, when it came time to make a visual to accompany the song, the aim was to capture some of the ways people attempt to navigate moving past those major heartbreaks. Throwing oneself into tactile tasks seemed like a fitting arena to explore. To watch someone quietly working a craft with their hands, taking their time and allowing themselves to focus in a way that hopefully quiets the mind and blocks everything else out can be incredibly calming and hypnotic. Whether at a professional level or just channeling energy into a personal hobby, there’s a lot of power in having a pursuit that requires attention and finesse. Tying that profound, resilient kind of calm to the song in a way that is not so present within the lyrics feels like a great companion to the track itself — adding a glimpse of a way out of the feedback.

Listen to “Wounds Of Love” below.

A Way Forward is out 11/5.