If you were paying even the slightest amount of attention to indie rock in 2017, there’s absolutely no way you missed Gang Of Youths. Their album, Go Farther In Lightness picked up fans all over the world for the Sydney-based band, proving once and for all that heartland rock was no longer strictly an American thing, it could crop up anywhere on the planet. That was the band’s second album, and their clear breakout, and now it sounds like they’ve got something new in the works.
Today they shared their first new music since Lightness came out, a freewheeling track called “The Angel Of 8th Ave” that feels pretty New York City to me, but maybe that’s projection. The Springsteen influences are laced all through the track once again, as frontman Dave Le’aupepe’s vocals do the same raspy acrobatics that Bruce’s do. Hey, we might not be that far away from a Gang Of Youths/Springsteen collab, considering he just worked with Bleachers last year and has a new song dropping with The Killers.
“Angel Of 8th Ave” is the precursor to the band’s new album, which Le’aupepe told Zane Lowe came after scrapping two earlier versions. Honestly, I take that kind of perfectionism as an incredibly good sign. And Dave also said the record will be different from what they’ve done in the past. “It’s probably the only song that you’ll hear from us from now that sounds remotely kind of what we sounded like the previous kind of six to eight years that’s intriguing,” he said. “I think there was kind of a part of us that wanted to still tip the cap to what we’d been for so long, but also gestured to the future and gestures to the sounds that we’re obsessed with gestures to the world that we’re starting to create in this kind of room.”
Check out the song above and keep an eye out for an album announcement coming soon.