Manchester synth-rock quintet W.H. Lung have announced the follow-up to their acclaimed 2019 debut Incidental Music, sharing the details of Vanities (Sept. 3, Melodic Records) on Wednesday alongside new single “Pearl in the Palm.” Tom Sharkett, who shares songwriting duties with Joe Evans, calls the track “a transition from the old W. H. Lung to new,” while Vanities as a whole documents a period of flux for the group, in which they lost a member to a move and were drawn to the inclusive community of dance music.
Where Incidental Music found the band blending post-punk and krautrock guitars with synth-pop propulsion, “Pearl in the Palm” shifts the scales towards the latter end of the rock show vs. dance floor spectrum. Synth sounds evoking both Blade Runner and Giorgio Moroder swirl around uptempo drums and Evans’ reedy vocals, with funky guitar accents, group vocals and a sprawl that never slows evoking the best of dance-punk greats like LCD Soundsystem.
“The song is exploring relationships, the stakes of relationships, and how that defines the individual,” says Evans of the song and its video—which he co-directed alongside Gracie Collier, shooting in January in the Irish midlands—in a statement. “You can find yourself in a balloon, if you’re willing to let that happen. Just like you can find yourself in another person. And you’ve got to go away to come back.”
Watch the “Pearl in the Palm” video below and see the details of Vanities further down. You can preorder the album here
Vanities Tracklist:
1. Calm Down
2. Gd Tym
3. Pearl In The Palm
4. Ways Of Seeing
5. ARPi
6. Showstopper
7. Figure With Flowers
8. Somebody Like
9. Kaya
Vanities Album Art:
