Here’s some news that’s sort of strange in its normalcy: A new ME REX album is on the way. Until now, Myles McCabe’s plucky, thoughtful London-based indie rock band has dealt mostly in EPs, and their one full-length album, 2021’s Megabear, was an ambitious conceptual exercise comprising 52 songs at the same tempo that fit together in any order. So the apparent straightforwardness of the forthcoming Giant Elk is somewhat surprising.

The band — now a trio with McCabe plus Rich Mandell and Phoebe Cross after the departure of Fresh’s Kathryn Woods, though she does appear on two of these songs — will release the new LP in October via their longtime label home Big Scary Monsters. It’s preceded today by “Eutherians (Ultramarine),” a characteristically hearty, poetic guitar-based track filled with stanzas like: “A lasting happiness/ Cannot be far from here/ We wake up terrified/ Kind of get off on fear.” The chorus poses the question, “Under the deep deep deep deep ultramarine/ Could you love me to death for the best part of a century?”

Listen below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Slow Worm”
02 “Infinity Worm”
03 “Eutherians (Ultramarine)”
04 “Giant Giant Giant”
05 “Halley”
06 “Oliver”
07 “Spiders”
08 “Jawbone”
09 “Pythons”
10 “Strangleweed”
11 “Summer Brevis”

Giant Elk is out 10/20 on Big Scary Monsters.