CYMBALS have today shared the opening track from their new album The Age Of Fracture. “Winter ’98” is available to stream now. A few chords of “Winter 98” were first head closing the short film with which CYMBALS first announced The Age Of Fracture. The film, in keeping with the literary inspiration running through the album, was centred around an original poem from British poet and novelist Joe Dunthorne, author of Submarine http://youtu.be/RnMW35r6oYk.

The title itself, The Age Of Fracture, comes from a book by Princeton academic, Daniel T. Rodgers, which addresses the fragmentation of ideas towards the end of the last century and how collective meanings have become uncertain. Singer and guitarist Jack Cleverly writes: “It hit me that I often feel paralysed by the feeling that everything is ‘too complicated’, and that many people I know feel that paralysis.

I realised that this way of thinking can be traced through these songs.”Produced by Dreamtrak (Swim Deep, Chad Valley, Hot Chip) in his Hackney studio and written collectively over the last 12-months, the group have taken their time to carefully piece the album together, song-by-song, in sequence. The album was completed following a final mix from Daniel Rejmer (Foals, Everything Everything) and the result is testament to the band’s attention to detail: a cleaner, brighter sound than their brattier early recordings, edging towards the European sophistication of the end-of-the-century French house Jack grew up around.

“We’ve never been in it just for a laugh,” says Cleverly; “but things got confused when we said we wanted to keep it fun – we just didn’t want to end up bitter, having chased a hollow dream.  But this album is less about us; it’s more outward looking, more aware of the world at large.” Despite the weighty literary influences, the band are keen to separate themselves from the over-earnestness that can sometimes accompany such associations.

04 Feb – Electrowerkz, London

06 Feb – Limelight, Belfast

07 Feb – Workman’s Club, Dublin

08 Feb – Cyprus Avenue, Cork

CYMBALS