...Is Committed
Say Anything
May 24, 2024News updates for '...Is Committed' by Say Anything
Say Anything share burning new single "On Cum" from forthcoming LP ...Is Committed
Los Angeles, CA (April 25, 2024) – Last month, Max Bemis and his band Say Anything revealed details of their first album since 2019, the aptly-titled …Is Committed, due May 24 on Dine Alone Records. Today, the band is sharing the LP’s second song, “ON CUM.” It’s a textbook ripper, packed with allusions to the bands that formed the soundtrack to Emo Nite and the When We Were Young Festival, which the band is set to perform at in October. It has a chopping punk thrash backbeat, a battering NOFX-style second verse attack, and an idiosyncratic and emotional outro, with Bemis crooning “I’m Brandon Boyd-ing out in this son of a b***h.” Paste premiered the song this morning, writing “In their new era, Say Anything can't help but run wild through brash technicolor..”
Speaking on the new song, Bemis said in a statement that “"ON CUM" is an ode to the sanctity of having a second song on any uppity record that at least attempts to truly "knock.” The "chopping steak" beat being included is the evidence we weren't content to only half-knock when "Monkey Wrench" still exists.” The new song follows on the heels of previously released singles “PSYCHE!,” “ARE YOU (IN) THERE?,” “CARRIE & LOWELL & CODY (PENDENT),” a song about codependency, alienation, and resolving conflict with the ones closest to you, and most recently, “I, VIBRATOR,” in which Bemis lampoons the traditional “for the ladies” song by writing about his desire to be a disembodied vibrator used as a tool of female sexual empowerment. Stream the new single below along with the previously released singles.
Say Anything has announced its first album in five years titled ...Is Committed, set for release on May 24, 2024 via Dine Alone Records. Last year, the beloved rock group returned from a years long hiatus with three singles: “PSYCHE!,” “ARE YOU (IN) THERE?” and “CARRIE & LOWELL & CODY (PENDENT),” signaling a reinvigorated, renaissance period for the band and giving us a taste of new material from the forthcoming LP. They had reunited, and played numerous sold out shows in New York City, Los Angeles, and triumphantly captured thousands of fans' attention at Riot Fest in Chicago and When We Were Young in Las Vegas (featuring Fred Mascherino of TBS fame and Brian Warren of Weatherbox). In December, the band announced a tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of their breakout album …Is A Real Boy, which stretches from April to June, and treks across the entire United States.
From the official press release: The new album ...Is Committed sees the group’s architect and frontman Max Bemis reuniting with producer Brad Wood (Sunny Day Real Estate, Mewithoutyou), who previously produced the band’s seminal double album …In Defense of the Genre. After the band released 2019’s would-be swansong – Oliver Appropriate – fans believed the band had called it quits. Pitchfork called it “...a fitting ending for a band that always stood a step or two outside the scene, pointing and laughing.” In addition to announcing the release date for the new album, the band is sharing another song from the record, “I, VIBRATOR,” a simultaneously hilarious and heartfelt ode to Bemis’ partner and wife, Sherri Dupree-Bemis, who can also be heard on the track. You can stream the new track below.
..Is Committed represents both a return to form and a mid-career left turn. Bemis still traffics in exaggeration and Jewish humor, but the hyperbole has been tempered by the blows of reality. This is no longer the angst of post-adolescence, but the grim phantasms of adulthood. Coming full circle in a sense, Bemis says these are the most autobiographical songs that he’s written since high school. As with any Say Anything record, the songs are rollicking and self-referential, jam packed with meta-references and in-jokes. …Is Committed is as much an album as a labyrinth, a therapy session kvetch, a conflagration of obscene horror, familial distress, and humanistic lament. A defining capstone to a period of blinding trauma that has only now begun to heal. You probably already knew that anesthetized bliss was never in the cards. After all, the closest thing to a happy ending in real life is one that is bittersweet.
RIYL: Weatherbox, The Hotelier, early Say Anything, MeWithoutYou, Two Tongues
