Back in 2021, Palehound leader El Kempner teamed up with Jay Som’s Melina Duterte to release a full-length collaboration as Bachelor, Doomin’ Sun. The most recent Palehound album is 2019’s Black Friday, which we named Album Of The Week at the time. Today, Kempner is back with news of a new Palehound album called Eye On The Bat, which will be out in July. Lead single “The Clutch” is a rush of satisfyingly mangled goodness, with Kempner delivering the song’s central refrain (“It’s a punch in the gut”) with curdled enthusiasm.

“‘The Clutch” is the very first song I wrote for this album, back in 2020 right when lockdown started,” Kempner said in a statement, continuing:

I had been on a tour that was sliced in half by the onset of the pandemic and we had to apocalypse road trip back to New York across the country from Oregon, where our next show had been scheduled for. While that was happening, I was also having a triggering romantic experience with somebody I didn’t know too well, and by the time I got home my whole body seemed to be spinning in turmoil. Writing and producing this song grounded me and helped me process a new future and self that I hadn’t anticipated.

Watch a video co-directed by Brittany Reeber and Adam Kolodny below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Good Sex”
02 “Independence Day”
03 “The Clutch”
04 “Eye On The Bat”
05 “U Want It U Got It”
06 “Route 22”
07 “My Evil”
08 “Head Like Soup”
09 “Right About You”
10 “Fadin”

Eye On The Bat is out 7/14 via Polyvinyl. Pre-order it here.