Ann Arbor quartet PITY SEX have announced their anticipated new album White Hot Moon will be released on April 29 via Poison City Records.
On White Hot Moon, PITY SEX use the foundation of 2013's celebrated debut Feast of Love as the framework for something bigger, stronger, and altogether more monumental, looking to wide-screen albums by Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth for inspiration. As Sean St. Charles explains, “We thought a lot about pop conventions and how they work, and we're purposefully playing around with that.”
White Hot Moon is now available for pre-order on Exclusive Coloured Vinyl
Produced by Will Yip, the 12 original songs of White Hot Moon showcase some of the most collaborative songwriting in the band's career, and that spirit has taken them in exciting directions - often several at once, dipping into different stylistic touchstones while maintaining a constant, grounding sense of emotion throughout. Guitarists Britty Drake and Brennan Greaves spin huge webs of sound, anchored in shoegaze but branching off in a dozen directions, from fuzzed-out power-pop (“Bonhomie”) to shimmering balladry (“Dandelion”) and back again, while co-lyricist/drummer Sean St. Charles and bassist Brandan Pierce lock into step with floor-shaking low-end and subtly counterintuitive rhythms. Drake brings an immediacy to her intimate, fearlessly personal songs—check the quietly devastating revelation of a recent loss in the opening moments of “Plum”—guided by her airy, hypnotic vocals. Meanwhile, Greaves’ guitar parts bring gravity to St. Charles' more imagistic lyrics, his voice effortlessly segueing from baritone counterpoint for Drake to an evocative, confident croon. Together, as on highlight “What Might Soothe You,” their voices bob and weave around each other in innervating tension before melting into harmony.
It's these two distinct attitudes toward songwriting that fuel PITY SEX'S creative fires, with Drake and St. Charles not so much competing as complementing one another's style, a confluence that enriches White Hot Moon and encourages compositional complexity and a shared affinity for pop solidity in equal measure. For instance, St. Charles and Drake both offer takes on romantic longing in “Bonhomie” and “Burden You,” respectively, and while St. Charles’ lyrics offer a more metaphorical vision of being hung up on love (“Electric tape for you, / Bound arms and legs for you”), Drake cuts to the quick with a sharp directness (“I want your summer's salty skin, / Without yours, mine is wearing thin”) that levels the listener in equal measure. As St. Charles puts it, “It's the idea that you can take a mundane life, and it becomes different in a slightly 'off' world—like, you spend winter sitting in your room everyday, and the details around you become boring. But in those instances, the smaller peculiarities stand out. The little details become more meaningful.”
But Drake has her own approach to the songs she brings to the band. “I'm not interested in hearing about someone's mundane day-to-day life,” she says. “Love and relationships—not just romantic relationships, but in general—are things everyone can relate to, and I tend to gravitate towards universal experiences. People are the main inspiration for me.”
The result: wherever you visit White Hot Moon, you'll come away refreshed, revitalised, and ready for PITY SEX to guide you along the rest of the trip.
WHITE HOT MOON TRACK LISTING:
1. A Satisfactory World For Reasonable People
2. Burden You
3. Bonhomie
4. September
5. What Might Soothe You
6. Plum
7. Nothing Rips Through Me
8. Orange and Red
9. Dandelion
10. White Hot Moon
11. Pin A Star
12. Wappen Beggars