Merchandise have largely kept quiet since their last album, 2016's A Corpse Wired For Sound. While touring that record, the Florida punks had to cancel a bunch of shows because frontman Carson Cox passed out backstage and fractured his jaw. Luckily, he made a full recovery, and spent the next few years intermittently releasing new music outside of Merchandise. Now, Merchandise are ready for a proper return.
Last Friday Merchandise shared "You Shot Me Down," their first new music in nearly nine years. It's a jangly, reverb-heavy, gothic-tinged jam that seems to subtly address Merchandise's abrupt and unplanned hiatus: "Everything you know to be true/ Can disappear as you blink," Cox sings. In an accompanying Instagram post, Cox revealed that he's been working on Merchandise's upcoming sixth LP since 2019. No word yet on when it'll be ready, but Cox promises it'll see the light of day soon. He wrote further:
This for the fans that after all these years still ask me for new music. Myself and my bandmates all live in different cities, we have different live now but i still have more to say with this project. It’s a lot harder to make anything work now as we all know but I don’t feel like I should let it stop me. I know music can still open hearts.
Check out "You Shot Me Down" below.
