After a six year break since La Dispute’s last album ‘Panorama’ in 2019, the poetic post-hardcore band has announced their return with an upcoming album ‘No One Was Driving The Car’. Off of this release, they will be touring the UK and EU in July and the US in September.
The band have released three tracks from the upcoming album titled, ‘I Shaved My Head’, ‘Man With Hands and Ankles Bound’ and ‘Autofiction Detail’. La Dispute are known for their spoken word screamo storytelling with hit tracks such as ‘Such Small Hands’ from their 2018 album ‘Somewhere At The Bottom Of The River Between Vega And Altair’. The album was a surprising portrayal of folklore in post-hardcore rock, following the story of a princess separated from her lover by a flooding river.
Their distinctive storytelling continues on into their new release. ‘No One Was Driving The Car’ discusses technology and tragedy inspired by Paul Shrader’s 2017 thriller First Reformed, which follows a Protestant minister who questions his faith after the loss of his son. Frontman and vocalist Jordan Dryer explained the premise behind the three songs released prior to the album and the narrative they follow in a recent press release. He states: “It begins with a man examining his own slow dissociation from himself while shaving his head alone in a bathroom at night,” in regards to the first song ‘I Shaved My Head’.
The band have released an emotive music video to accompany the song, depicting the chilling beginnings of their album’s story with direction from Steven Paseshnik.
The story then follows into the next song ‘Man With Hands And Ankles Bound’ which “shifts through a neighbor’s open window to a conversation about control and desire, framed via the image of a man seen through it: bound on the floor with a woman standing before him, presumably a sex worker.”
Finally, the last song released ‘Autofiction Detail’ “follows him on that destination-less late night walk, among the street people and their disasters, ending where he had the whole night subconsciously always headed: the hospital where his partner works, at which point an internal reckoning occurs.” The song ends with Dryer’s isolated vocals in their classic spoken word style with poetic phrases amongst the eerie line “A beating heart”, repeated until the song ends.
La dispute’s return to the UK is anticipated by fans with their last concert in the UK taking place just under a year ago at The Garage, London. For their upcoming UK/EU tour they will hit some exciting venues such as independent rock music festival 2000trees in Cheltenham. Tickets can be found here.
