In the last few months, Sharon Van Etten has returned with some new songs. First there was “Porta” in February — which ranked amongst our favorite songs that week — and then there was “Used To It” in March. This might’ve given you the impression that Van Etten was gearing up for a new album, and you would be right. Van Etten has announced her sixth album, We’ve Been Going About It All Wrong, will be out in a month.

“Porta” and “Used To It” are, however, not on the album. In fact, there won’t be any singles ahead of its release. “I wanted to approach this release differently, to engage my fans in an intentional way, in an effort to present the album as a whole body of work,” Van Etten explained in a statement. “These 10 songs are designed to be listened to in order, at once, so that a much larger story of hope, loss, longing and resilience can be told.”

A press release elaborates that We’ve Been Going About It All Wrong “concerns itself with the questions we ask ourselves when we think the world — or at least, our world — might be ending.” From there, it ponders how we spent our time, if we did enough of some things or too little of others. While that all sounds characteristically heavy for a SVE album, apparently there are glimmers of hope, or at least a path forward, within the album too — something its cover art is meant to communicate. “I wanted to convey that in an image with me walking away from it all,” Van Etten said. “Not necessarily brave, not necessarily sad, not necessarily happy.” You can watch a trailer for the album below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Darkness Fades”
02 “Home To Me”
03 “Iʼll Try”
04 “Anything”
05 “Born”
06 “Headspace”
07 “Come Back”
08 “Darkish”
09 “Mistakes”
10 “Far Away”

We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong is out 5/6 via Jagjaguwar.