Knifeplay

Knifeplay are finally back with a new studio album. What Is Truth?, the Philadelphia six-piece's third LP and first since 2022's Animal Drowning, arrives January 22, 2027 via Double Double Whammy, their first release for the label. It runs close to 80 minutes across 12 tracks, and the lead single "Love Song" is out now with a video from director Ben Turok.

"Love Song" is ten minutes long and in no hurry. Acoustic guitars and the intertwined vocals of Tj Strohmer and Johanna Baumann sit up front while the electric guitars roar underneath, and it's hard to tell whether they sound like hope or the lack of it. The song starts from the idea that we're all born from and into damage, then works its way toward something gentler: maybe we can't fix each other, but we can help each other get through. It leans more toward Mazzy Star and Red House Painters than the band's shoegaze roots. Longtime fans may recognize it, since it first surfaced alongside "Agonizing Mountain" and "Lord, Where Are You?" on the band's 2025 live EP Live In Seattle.

Strohmer recorded the album with Baumann across three Philly studios, including her own. Across its dozen tracks the band takes heavy material and renders it in harmonies, slow rhythms and pretty, open guitar lines, the idea being a record you can take shelter in without pretending things are fine. The official bio pitches it as the kind of record you'd have burned to a CD-R back when Low were still on Kranky and Red House Painters were still active. It closes on "Please Let the Children Be Artists," with French horn and flute drifting over mellotron strings.

For the video, Turok cast a real 20-year-old couple and drove cross-country with them from LA to New York. He planned most of the shoot but says the unplanned moments ended up being his favorite parts. "I wanted to make something epic in scope," he says.

The current lineup is Strohmer, Baumann, Alex Stackhouse on bass, Max Black on keys and string arrangements, Nora Maupin on drums and Dennis Martinelli on lead guitar. They play Capital City Music Hall in Harrisburg, PA on October 10 with Hase and a Full Body 2 DJ set, then Mini Mart in Philadelphia on December 11 with Rhododendron.

Pre-order What Is Truth? here.

What Is Truth? tracklist

1. Toil
2. Little Candle
3. Agonizing Mountain
4. Flowers Must Die
5. Joy
6. Close Your Eyes
7. Toil (Reprise)
8. Lord, Where Are You?
9. Stars
10. Love Song
11. Take the Light
12. Please Let the Children Be Artists