The Natural Lines

The Natural Lines
The Natural Lines

March 24th, 2023

Purchase

Following their recent First Five EP The Natural Lines today announce the release of their self-titled debut album out March 24 via Bella Union and available to pre-order HERE. To accompany the announcement the band have shared an entertaining video for the first single and album opener “Monotony” featuring celebrated American comedian, actress and TV host Nikki Glaser playing a somewhat unconventional psychiatrist.

Commenting on the song and video frontman Matt Pond says:

“Over the last few years, I've tried to focus on my breathing—to try and be a better singer, to try and be a better person. But it's hard to sit still and slow down when the world seems so unruly. 'Monotony' is an anthem about the daily tightrope—searching for the right path between passion and apathy. All the while, I've been working with Nikki Glaser. Her fearlessness is contagious. Since she never hesitates to tell me what she really thinks, I thought it made perfect sense for Nikki to portray my therapist in the video.”

Sometimes, a change of view can transform a person’s world. On "Don’t Come Down," the artist formerly known as Matt Pond PA can be found with his “shoulder on the concrete” of a pavement, scoping out the world anew. This granular realignment of perspective serves as an open door to the debut album from The Natural Lines. At once clearly Pond’s work yet a huge leap forward in its measured songcraft, melodic immediacy, collaborative detail and wryly questioning lyrics, the result is a gorgeous album of intimate reflections from a relocated, renamed, revivified talent.

Recorded with close collaborators and friends over a period that saw Pond make vital adjustments to his life, its stealth emergence reflects his desire to set a fresh pace for himself and come from somewhere new, somewhere more open.

Now based in Kingston, New York, with his partner and wild dog Willa, Matt explains the album’s gestation thus. “It was something different from the start. I wanted to write as purely as I could. Instead of getting stuck in the ‘tour, write an album, release an album, tour’ cycle, which is not a natural way of writing or living, I wanted to write an album and when it was done I wanted to make sure it was done. I didn’t want this feeling of, ‘Oh, we didn’t have time’, or, ‘I don’t know whether I believe in the songs but it’s coming out anyway.’ I used to be always racing to the finish line, but I’m not anymore.”