The New Pornographers, have announced their new album Continue as a Guest, will drop on March 31 via Merge Records. Lead track “Really Really Light,” is out today with along with a video directed by Christian Cerezo.

Along with the album news, The band are set for a run of North American shows this spring, with support from Wild Pink. The dates include two nights at Chicago’s Thalia Hall, as well as further performances at New York’s Brooklyn Steel and Boston’s Royale. A portion of proceeds from presale tickets sold via the band’s website will be donated to abortion rights organization Frontera Fund.

Album Highlights include “Really Really Light” ( co-written by Dan Bejar (Destroyer), is a refashioning of a cutting-room-floor track from the band’s 2014 album Brill Bruisers. “Part of my process throughout the years has been messing with things I never finished. I really liked Dan’s chorus, and for a while I was just trying to write something that I felt like belonged with it,” A.C. Newman shares. “I was thinking of the Aloe Blacc song ‘The Man’ which interpolated the chorus from Elton John’s ‘Your Song’ and thought it would be fun to interpolate a song that no one knows. Not trying to sound like Aloe Blacc, just doing some interpolating of my own. It became a game of writing a verse that felt like a part of the same song. In my mind, I was striving for a little Jeff Lynne–era Tom Petty, a classic go-to.”

Newman began work on Continue as a Guest at his Woodstock, New York home over the course of a year, after the band had just finished touring behind 2019’s In The Morse Code Of Brake Lights. During the writing and recording process, he discovered new lyrical, artistic and sonic approaches experimenting with his own vocal register.

The 10-track record is produced by Newman and features compatriots Neko Case, Kathryn Calder, John Collins, Todd Fancey and Joe Seiders as well as contributions from saxophonist Zach Djanikian and in addition to the Bejar co-write, “Firework in the Falling Snow” was co-penned by Sadie Dupuis (Speedy Ortiz, Sad13).

The album tackles themes of isolation and collapse, following the ambivalence of day-to-day life during the pandemic and the endless pitfalls of living online. But Newman says that Continue as a Guest’s title track also addresses the continually rolling concerns that come with being in a band for so long. “The idea of continuing as a guest felt very apropos to the times,” he explains. “Feeling out of place in culture, in society—not feeling like a part of any zeitgeist, but happy to be separate and living your simple life, your long fade-out. Find your own little nowhere, find some space to fall apart, continue as a guest.”

The New Pornographers
Continue As A Guest
Tracklist
Merge Records

1. Really Really Light
2. Pontius Pilate’s Home Movies
3. Cat and Mouse with the Light
4. Last and Beautiful
5. Continue as a Guest
6. Bottle Episodes
7. Marie and the Undersea
8. Angelcover
9. Firework in the Falling Snow
10. Wish Automatic Suite

The New Pornographers 2023 Tour Dates

April 19—Asheville, NC—Salvage Station*
April 20—Atlanta, GA—Variety Playhouse*
April 21—New Orleans, LA—Tipitina’s*
April 22—Houston, TX—White Oak Music Hall*
April 23—Dallas, TX—Studio at The Factory*
April 25—Austin, TX—Paramount*
April 26—Oklahoma City, OK—Tower Theatre*
April 27—St. Louis, MO—Sheldon Concert Hall*
April 28—Omaha, NE—The Waiting Room*
April 29—Kansas City, MO—The Truman*
April 30—Denver, CO—Gothic Theatre*
May 3—St. Paul, MN—The Fitzgerald*
May 4—Milwaukee, WI—Turner Hall*
May 5—Chicago, IL—Thalia Hall*
May 6—Chicago, IL— Thalia Hall*
May 8—Cincinnati, OH—Memorial Hall*
May 9—Columbus, OH—Newport Music Hall*
May 11—Detroit, MI—El Club*
May 12—Toronto, ON—Danforth*
May 13—Burlington, VT—Higher Ground Ballroom*
May 14—Norwalk, CT— Wall Street Theater*
May 15—Boston, MA—Royale*
May 17—New York, NY—Brooklyn Steel*
May 18—Philadelphia, PA—Union Transfer*
May 19—Washington, DC—9:30 Club*
May 21—Saxapahaw, NC—Haw River Ballroom*

*with Wild Pink

pre-order Continue As A Special Guest by The New Pornographers HERE