Oh lord. Here we go. It’s time for a new album cycle from the 1975.

After remaining mostly silent since the release of 2020’s Notes On A Conditional Form, lately the band has been teasing new single “Part Of The Band” for release next week and hyping up the launch of their new era. Yesterday they posted the lyrics for “Part Of The Band,” which are really something, even by Matty Healy standards. And now, via postcards mailed to fans, the band has revealed the title and tracklist for their fifth LP. It’s called being funny in a foreign language, and at just 11 tracks, it looks like it will be quite concise as 1975 albums go.

But first, those lyrics. Yeesh. You won’t find a more ardent defender of this band on the Stereogum staff, but even to me it reads like a little much. There are lots of references to orgasms and drugs, and Healy mentions “my cancellations,” presumably a reference to the time he deleted his Twitter account after facing backlash for a tweet about George Floyd’s death that played like promo for the band’s song “Love It If We Made It.” One choice line: “I know some Vaccinista tote bag chic baristas sitting in east on their communista keisters writing about their ejaculations.” Another: “Am I ironically woke? The butt of my joke? Or I am just some post-coke, average, skinny bloke calling his ego imagination?” Yeah, OK, here’s the whole thing:

She was part of the airforce
I was part of the band
I always used to bust into her hand
In my imagination
I was living my best life
Living with my parents
Way before the paying penance and verbal propellants
And my cancellations

And I fell in love with a boy,
it was kinda lame
I was Rimbaud and he was Paul Verlaine
In my imagination
So many cringes in the heroin binges,
I was coming off the hinges,
Living on the fringes of my imagination

Enough about me now
‘You gotta talk about the people baby’

Now I’m at home – somewhere I don’t like
Eating stuff off of motorbikes
Coming to her lookalikes

I can’t get the language right
Just tell me what’s unladylike

I know some Vaccinista tote bag chic baristas sitting in east on their communista keisters writing about their ejaculations

I like my men like I like my coffee – full of soy milk and so sweet it won’t offend anybody whilst staining the pages of The Nation

A Xanax and a Newport
‘I take care of my kids’ she said

The worst of inside of us begets that feeling on the internet
It’s like someone intended it
A diamond in the rough begets the diamond with a scruff you get

Am I ironically woke? The butt of my joke? Or I am just some post-coke, average, skinny bloke calling his ego imagination?

I’ve not picked up that in 1,400 days and 9 hours and 16 minutes babe – it’s kind of my daily iteration

Healy has a way of making this stuff work within the context of a 1975 song, but in the meantime, “so many cringes” feels about right.

TRACKLIST:
01 “The 1975”
02 “Happiness”
03 “Looking For Somebody (To Love)”
04 “Part Of The Band”
05 “Oh Caroline”
06 “I’m In Love With You”
07 “All I Need To Hear”
08 “Wintering”
09 “Human Too”
10 “About You”
11 “When We Are Together”