Peel Dream Magazine are back. We haven’t heard from the Joe Stevens-led project since 2020’s surprise EP Moral Panics, which emerged in the aftermath of that year’s breakthrough album Agitprop Alterna. That album swirled together lots of extremely cool, extremely ’90s touchstones like shoegaze, krautrock, Britpop, and psych. But Peel Dream have since relocated from NYC to LA, and their sound seems to have moved a bit too.

A new album called Pad is on the way in October. It’s “a conceptual work reflecting on isolation and identity,” but not exactly a “pandemic album” in the conventional sense. Rather, Pad tells an imagined story about Stevens’ bandmates kicking him out of Peel Dream Magazine and his fight to rejoin the group. (The opening track is called “Not In The Band,” and — spoiler alert — the final song is called “Back In The Band.”)

Pad’s lead single and title track portends a softer, more elegant sound; according to promo materials, Stevens “eschews the fuzzy glories of his indie pop past” in favor of something more like chamber-pop, even as the residue of the old sound remains. I hear glimpses of artists from Westerman to the Beach Boys in there too. Watch Ryan McGlade and Stevens’ video for “Pad” below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Not In The Band”
02 “Pad”
03 “Pictionary”
04 “Wanting And Waiting”
05 “Self Actualization Center” (Feat. Winter)
06 “Walk Around The Block”
07 “Hamlet”
08 “Penelope’s Suitors”
09 “Hiding Out”
10 “Jennifer Hindsight”
11 “Reiki”
12 “La Sol”
13 “Message The Manager”
14 “Roll In The Hay”
15 “Back In The Band”

Pad is out 10/7 on Slumberland/Tough Love. Pre-order it here.