More than 15 years in, treasured Philadelphia punk rockers The Menzingers have cemented a multi-decade reputation as road warriors with an unbeatable catalog. Today they expand their impressive repertoire with the announcement of their seventh studio album, Some Of It Was True, due for release on October 13th via Epitaph Records.
Vocalist and guitarist Greg Barnett reveals, “Written over the last two and a half years in hotels, backstages, basements, and rehearsal rooms and recorded during a life-changing retreat down south, ‘Some Of It Was True’ is the most realized version of what we set out to do when we started this band 17 years ago—have fun and be ourselves.”
The band also shares the record’s lead single and accompanying music video, “Hope Is A Dangerous Little Thing” that balances confessional lyrics with an anthemic edge.
Four years since the release of 2019’s Hello Exile, the Menzingers presented an EP of acoustic reworks (From Exile, 2020) that saw the band “flex their creative muscles and make the most of their time away from each other in quarantine” according to Chorus.FM. Subsequently, Gregor Barnett’s solo record Don’t Go Throwing Roses In My Grave (2022) was praised by Kerrang! for its “clear-eyed songwriting never wavers.” This was around the time when Some Of It Was True started to come together.
Joined by Grammy-nominated producer Brad Cook (Bon Iver, the War on Drugs, Waxahatchee), the foursome took off to El Paso, Texas to record at the legendary Sonic Ranch. Lending his incredible ear, Cook helped accomplish the daunting task of capturing the Menzingers’ distinctive live energy within the confines of a studio. What results is their most immediate-sounding and energetic record to date, featuring a sound that’s both rich, raw, and complementary to the group’s increasingly prismatic songwriting approach.
“The Menzingers are as real as it gets,” Cook says on his time in the studio with the band. “I had an absolute blast working with these guys and was moved to tears many times. They are truly dedicated to artistic growth, and to each other, in ways I found both refreshing and beautiful. I am now a lifer.”
Speaking on the impact that Cook had on the band, Tom May says, “Brad massively changed the way we were approaching the record. We’d talk about music and develop a vocabulary about how to work together, and that made us embrace chasing the feeling instead worrying about locking in things immediately.”
Lyrically, Some Of It Was True is a showcase for how the band’s songwriting has expanded beyond their own personal experiences, drawing from what’s happening around them and thelives of those who keep this world’s lifeforce pumping. Acknowledging that they’re in a very different place than when they formed in 2008, this album embraces change and it’s definitely for the better. “This record just feels different for us,” Barnett explains. “It’s a really important one in our catalog, and a pivotal moment in our history. We have the liberty of our fans growing with us now, and after writing these lyrical songs about where we are in life, we decided to take other peoples’ stories and make something bigger out of it.”