Laura Jane Grace of Against Me! surprise released a solo album last night via Polyvinyl titled Stay Alive. It’s the follow-up to 2018’s Bought to Rot, which she recorded as Laura Jane Grace & the Devouring Mothers. The album was recorded with just vocals, an acoustic guitar and a drum machine, and it was engineered by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in July 2020.
On Stay Alive, Grace is funny, blunt and vulnerable. It’s also unabashedly earnest, but not in a corny way—more in the triumphant “I wanna hug all my friends and then fuck shit up” kind of way. The album yearns for togetherness, celebrates brokenness and tries to remain steadfast in a conservative-ruled country that’s collapsing before our eyes.
Grace says of the album:
I sat around for a month-and-a-half at a home just being shell-shocked being like, “What the fuck happened and what the fuck is happening with the world?” As I started to get my bearings, I just came to the realization that waiting was going to kill the record and kill the songs. I spent two years working on all these songs, and the idea of throwing them away didn’t sit well with me. But then I was like, “What am I waiting for?” All I have to do is adjust my scope. I can sit here on my fucking ass and do nothing, or I can work.
To support the album, Grace will perform live from Chicago’s Lincoln Hall for Audiotree’s “STAGED” series on Saturday, Oct. 17. Tickets for the stream and album bundles are available now here.
Listen to the full album below, and scroll down for the album artwork and tracklist. Click here to read Paste’s 2018 interview with Grace.
Stay Alive Album Artwork:
Stay Alive Tracklist:
01. The Swimming Pool Song
02. The Calendar Song
03. Shelter In Place
04. Return To Oz
05. The Mountain Song
06. SuperNatural Possession
07. Hanging Tree
08. Please Leave
09. Why Kant I Be You?
10. Ice Cream Song
11. The Magic Point
12. Blood & Thunder
13. So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Fuck Off
14. Old Friend (Stay Alive)
