Next month, the great Michigan post-hardcore band La Dispute will return with No One Was Driving The Car, their first new album in six years. No One Was Driving The Car is divided up into multiple acts, and La Dispute have been unveiling the album one act at a time -- the three-song opening, the incredible nine-minute epic "Environmental Catastrophe Film," the five-song third act. That might seem pretentious, but La Dispute's vast, sincere music is powerful enough to wash away whatever reservations you might have about the presentation. Everything that we have heard from this album is special. Today, La Dispute share the three-song suite that serves as the fourth act of No One Was Driving The Car.
Once again, we're getting a whole lot of music from La Dispute. Their three new songs -- "Top Sellers Banquet," "Saturation Diver," and " I Dreamt Of A Room With All My Friends I Could Not Get In" -- cover a whole lot of ground. The first track alone is eight minutes long. You could get lost in frontman Jordan Dreyer's narration, which flirts with spoken-word. "Saturation Diver" also has a video from director Adam Vass. Here's what Dreyer says about the album's fourth act:
the next act was heavily inspired by a particular scene in First Reformed, where the film’s two primary characters connect through a ritual of remembrance and comfort, traveling beyond their plane of reality into some otherworldly beyond. the record’s spiritual/metaphysical event happens here, in the middle of a banquet held by the multi-level marketing company mentioned in the fourth song from the prior act in celebration of their fiscal year’s highest performers. after a welcome speech, and while the provided entertainment (ballet dancers accompanied by a small orchestra) begins between tables on the floor, a sudden flash of light occurs, an indescribable sound accompanying it, and light begins to fall through the hall’s high ceilings down, focused only on the non-employees in attendance (the dancers, the servers, the players, valets), at which point they begin to rise impossibly skyward, leaving the others invited attendees and higher ups behind.
the narrator returns in the next song, discussing again the slow dissociation mentioned heavily in act one, through the image of a saturation diver tangled in his oxygen line. he realizes he remains on earth after the “rapture” of the previous track passes, and reflects again on the journey taken to arrive there, alone and un-beamed up.
we return home in the final entry of the penultimate block, in the midst of his unaddressed malaise and disintegration. the self-examination concludes in self-loathing and collapse -- his partner preparing to leave, his desperate pleas unheeded, all of life and comfort broken in unfixable ways -- by his own failure to address and correct. we’re left with, effectively, the narrator lamenting some combination of control he never had and control he failed to establish. he pleas for the chance to correct, to be given one more opportunity to not just push back against odds stacked against him (and all of us), but to most of all recognize and care for what, despite everything, has given him security and meaning.
Below, check out all three new songs, as well as La Dispute's upcoming tour dates.
TOUR DATES:
9/05 - Detroit, MI @ St. Andrew's Hall
9/06 - Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Theatre
9/07 - Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop
9/08 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Spirit Hall
9/10 - Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
9/11 - Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw
9/12 - Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
9/13 - Washington, DC @ Howard Theater
9/14 - Charlotte, NC @ Neighborhood Theatre
9/16 - Orlando, FL @ The Beacham
9/17 - Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade
9/18 - Nashville, TN @ Basement East
9/19 - Columbus, OH @ King of Clubs
9/20 - Indianapolis, IN @ Deluxe at Old National Centre
No One Was Driving The Car is out 9/5 on Epitaph.
