If it feels like an eternity since Japanese Breakfast released Jubilee, I guess that’s because it has been. The Grammy-nominated modern classic (an our Album Of The Week) technically came out in 2021(!), and Michelle Zauner promoted it in tandem with her bestselling memoir, Crying In H Mart. Well, happy new year to everyone, because Japanese Breakfast are back in 2025 with a new album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), which arrives March 21. We also get to hear its orchestral lead single, “Orlando In Love.”

Produced by Blake Mills, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) is technically the band’s first proper studio release. It was tracked at the historic Sound City in Los Angeles and sonically pushes back on Jubilee’s buoyant tone by getting a bit darker and gothic-gloomy. “I felt seduced by getting what I always wanted,” Zauner says of her mindset in making The Melancholy Brunettes. “I was flying too close to the sun, and I realized if I kept going I was going to die.” A peek at the track list also reveals a guest spot from Jeff Bridges on “Men In Bars.”

Meanwhile, a press release describes how The Melancholy Brunettes was inspired by “the plight of Icarus and other such condemned ones” where characters are taken through “cycles of temptation, transgression, and retribution.”

For example, “Orlando In Love” riffs on John Cheever’s riff on “Orlando Innamorato,” an unfinished epic made up of 68 ½ cantos by the Renaissance poet Matteo Maria Boiardo where “the hero is a well-meaning poet who parks his Winnebago by the sea and falls victim to a siren’s call.”

Listen below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Here Is Someone”
02 “Orlando In Love”
03 “Honey Water”
04 “Mega Circuit
05 “Little Girl”
06 “Leda”
07 “Picture Window”
08 “Men In Bars” (Feat. Jeff Bridges)
09 “Winter In LA”
10 “Magic Mountain”

TOUR DATES:
04/12 & 19 – Indio, CA @ Coachella Music and Arts Festival
04/23 – Austin, TX @ Moody Theater (ACL Live) *
04/24 – Dallas, TX @ South Side Ballroom *
04/26 – Atlanta, GA @ Tabernacle *
04/27 – Charlotte, NC @ The Fillmore *
04/28 – Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium *
05/02 – Chicago, IL @ Salt Shed *
05/03 – Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore *
05/05 – Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall *
05/07 – Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall at Fenway *
05/09 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount *
05/16 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Met Philadelphia Presented by Highmark *
06/24 – Oslo, NO @ Rockefeller
06/25 – Stockholm, SE @ Filadelfia
06/26 – Copenhagen, DK @ VEGA
06/29 – Manchester, UK @ Academy 1
06/30 – Glasgow, UK @ Barrowland
07/03 – London, UK @ O2 Academy Brixton
07/04-06 – Ewijk, NL @ Down The Rabbit Hole 2025
07/08 – Paris, FR @ Le Trianon
Aug 23 – Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl *
08/28 – San Francisco, CA @ The Masonic *
08/30 – Bend, OR @ Hayden Homes Amphitheater *
09/01 – Vancouver, BC @ Orpheum Theater *
09/06 – Denver, CO @ The Mission Ballroom
09/09 – Minneapolis, MN @ The Palace Theater *

* w/ Ginger Root

For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) is out 3/21 via Dead Oceans. Pre-order it here.