New Zealand quintet The Naked and Famous have debuted the first track, ‘A Stillness,’ off their forthcoming sophomore album, In Rolling Waves, out via Republic on September 17th. You can pre-order the album here. The song follows their explosive first single ‘Hearts Like Ours,’ debuted as Zane Lowe’s “Hottest Record in the World Today” on BBC Radio 1. We give it five minutes before it’s used in every commercial.” According to the band’s songwriter/producer Thom Powers, ’A Stillness’ is “a song about overcoming catastrophizing, re-discovering love, stability, security, calmness…I think it’s about not abandoning. It’s about dealing with your own sense of hopelessness.”
In Rolling Waves follows the band’s widely lauded debut Passive Me, Aggressive You. With global sales of over 500,000, the album spawned a US Gold single, ‘Young Blood,’ and took the band’s YouTube and Vevo views beyond 25 million. Praised by the NME, it was ”A classic case of lovely and beautiful: TNAF’s passive melodicism and aggressive innovation clash in a dazzling blaze of psych/sonic fireworks” and Rolling Stone magazine described ‘Young Blood’ as one of the year’s “best singles.”
Fronted by Powers (guitar/vocals) and Alisa Xayalith (vocals/keyboards), The Naked and Famous lit a fire under an online fan base, with a video subculture built through YouTube and into radio. M83 invited TNAF to remix a single and a Tiesto remix transformed ‘Young Blood’ into a club smash. By June 2012 the band, including David Beadle (bass guitar), Jesse Wood (drums) and Aaron Short (keyboards), had played to more than 600,000 people in 24 countries, and after two years of near-constant touring, set up home in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles to begin work on the twelve track album. The resulting album, In Rolling Waves, was produced by Powers and Short, along with Justin Meldal-Johnsen (M83, Beck and NIN).
In 2013, the band will commence a North American tour in late September before heading to Europe and arriving in the UK late November. Dates below.
Oct 6 - Washington DC, 9:30 Club
Oct 8 - Philadelphia PA, Electric Factory
Oct 10 - New York NY, Terminal 5
Oct 12 – Boston MA, House of Blues
Oct 14 - Toronto ON, Sound Academy
Oct 16 - Chicago IL, Riviera Theater
Oct 18 - Denver CO, Fillmore Auditorium
Oct 20 - Vancouver BC, Orpheum Theatre
Oct 21 - Seattle WA, Showbox Sodo
Oct 22 - Portland OR, Roseland Theater
Oct 24 - Las Vegas NV, The Cosmopolitan
Oct 26 - Pomona CA, Fox Theater
