News From Brand New’s Chicago Show

Brand New

Brand New performed in Chicago last night which means we have some new goodies. First, you can see what the tour vinyl offered looks like, you can watch the set on YouTube, and we learned that “Same Logic/Teeth” was actually written by Vinnie over a decade ago. So, that’s cool.

The band also mentioned they’ll be coming back to Chicago “within the next 14 months.” Oh, and they have new merch up on their website.

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The Data and God Are Raging Inside Me

Gwilym Lockwood has attempted to look at the Spotify data and map out Brand New’s music over the years:

My clustering algorithm identified three main types of Brand New songs:

1: “Hard and upbeat” (Loud, high energy, more dancey, higher valence)
2: “Soft and quiet” (Acoustic, low energy, quiet)
3: “Hard and intense” (Loud, high energy, less dancey, lower valence)

Your Favorite Weapon has a lot of type 1 songs (e.g. Seventy Times 7), while Devil and God has a lot of type 3 songs (e.g. You Won’t Know). Science Fiction has an even spread of all three. Hover over the points for more information, and click the cluster guide or the points to highlight the data across the graphs.

There’s some pretty interesting stuff to play around with here.

Kevin Devine Joins Brand New as Touring Member

Kevin Devine

Kevin Devine has announced he’s going to be a touring member of Brand New for the foreseeable future:

So, for the foreseeable future, I’ll be touring as a member of Brand New, playing guitar & singing harmonies. I’ve been playing music with & around Brand New in various ways for basically our entire careers; I love & am proud of them, think they’ve made a(nother) dynamic, special record, and take seriously the opportunity to perform as a part of their band, to help execute their vision & hopefully augment their already plenty-formidable stature. (It’s also really fun.) The reason for saying anything in public is to share that I’ll be quieting down the KD world for a while. There will still be a handful of odd shows here & there, and a few non-tour- or proper-record-related projects, but it feels good to do something else, take stock & decide what comes next, and “go away” a bit in some core sense. That’s it.

Thanks as always & be good to each other – these are scary, brutal, psychedelic times, but you’re not alone.

Brand New Set at High & Low Fest

Brand New

Brand New performed at High & Low Fest last night. A bunch of fans stayed up and watched fan shot live streams while chatting in the forum last night. You can find the full setlist below, re-read the fan reaction in the forum, and download the set via Brand New Archive.

If that’s a variation of the “goodbye” set, holy hell, it’s just about perfect. Also, pretty cool to see Kevin Devine up there on stage playing with the band. He harmonizes perfectly.

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Brand New Top the Charts

Brand New

It’s official: Brand New have the number one album in the country.

Rock band Brand New nabs its first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart as Science Fiction starts atop the tally with 58,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Aug. 24, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 55,000 were in traditional album sales. The set was released Aug. 18 through the band’s own Procrastinate! Music Traitors label, and is the first album from the band in nearly eight years.

What an absolute delight to see. I told the story on the last podcast about when I first started writing about this band and I truly never thought I’d see them top the charts like this. Incredible. Congratulations to the band and their team. If this ends up being their last album, the years of building a hyper-dedicated fanbase and releasing fantastic music pays off with this special honor.

Science Fiction (Encore Episode 152)

Encore 152

You may have had to wait a few extra weeks for a new episode of Encore, but that doesn’t come close to the eight year wait for a new album from Brand New. But, it’s here, and we’re gonna talk all about it. I am joined this week, once again, by special guest Drew Beringer to break down Science Fiction. We talk about our history with the band, our thoughts on their catalog, and do a track-by-track through the new album. We discuss the band’s place in the music scene, why they resonate so much with fans, and argue how the new album stacks up in their discography.

There’s never been a band quite like Brand New, and we may never see anything quite like them, or their rabid fanbase, again. I hope you enjoy our deep dive as much as we did recording it.

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