Back in 2020 — around the time the world went to shit, pandemic-style — former Cymbals Eat Guitars frontman Joseph D’Agostino released the self-titled debut from his new project Empty Country. The album put a heartland-rock spin on the yearning, epic-scale indie rock D’Agostino had been making for years, and it worked wonders. I don’t think many other records have won more fervent support within our comment section.

Today, Empty Country are back with their first new music since. “Pearl,” the new single out today, is billed as a sequel to “Marian,” the Empty Country opening track. It’s about D’Agostino’s mother, substance abuse, generational trauma, classic rock, and more. “When she had me she was 39/ A pickled Pearl, but I was pretty much fine,” D’Agostino sings in piercing falsetto. “When the future’s written/ You just kinda have to resign to it.” By the time the harmonica kicks in, you’ll be eager to hear more from this band — and more is coming soon, we’re told.

In the meantime, we’ve got a “Pearl” lyric video shot and edited by Zoë Browne and an accompanying audio short story called “Basilisk Or: Pearl Practices Guitar And Hallucinates The Future.” But first, a statement from D’Agostino:

Hope everybody enjoys this new song. It was a pleasure to work with my wonderful bandmates and some of the world’s very finest engineers (John Agnello/Greg Calbi) to make it a reality. Without going into too much detail, I’ll say that this song is a direct sequel to “Marian,” the opener from our 2020 debut. I also wrote and recorded an audio short story as a companion piece to this new material. It fleshes out some of the characters populating the little universe we’re building. You can read/listen to it at emptycountry.com. Looking forward to sharing more music with you this year.

Check out the new song and short story below.

“Pearl” is out now on Get Better.