Toronto-based band Dearly Beloved will follow their 2019 album Times Square Discount with new full length Walker Park, releasing on January 24th, 2023 via Sonic Unyon Records. It will be the band's seventh album in 15 years, and in addition to announcing a full North American tour for 2023, they will tour Ontario this year.
The band's latest single, All Hat, is a lively track that differs from their usual alternative punk and heavy garage rock sound by sounding much like a progressive rock song. The band's Rob Higgins calls it “a tribute, of sorts, to the prog masters I grew up with. Rob Wright from NonMeansNo, the Rush guys, Les Claypool of Primus. The best example of pure catharsis on the record.”
While Higgins was recording and writing at home on his own to cope with the pandemic, Walker Park began to form. The futility of those two years is represented in the songs. "I felt fortunate to have my studio, and used the time to teach myself mix engineering, allowing me to mix this album myself for the first time.” Higgins notes. “Along with learning how to play the drums a little bit better, with the goal of reaching 'shitty drummer' status. So the songs on ‘Warker Park’ mostly started with simple beats and me overplaying on the bass — an element that at no point in the process got dialed back.”
On the whole of Walker Park Higgins comments: “‘Walker Park’ is the soundtrack to an as-yet-unmade film of the same name. Some turning points you just don’t come back from. Some turning points in our lives are so profound that the changes they inspire are of the fundamental variety."
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Dearly Beloved
Sonic Unyon Records
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