photo credit: Daniel Topete
Pinegrove have just shared the latest single, “The Alarmist,” from their already critically lauded new album, Marigold, to be released on Rough Trade Records on January 17th, 2020.
Of the track, the band says ‘This song tries to look at the negotiation of space between two people—balancing comfort and closeness with a need for independence. the song takes place in the first moment you find yourself alone after an intense experience with a friend, sorting through the layers of history, head swimming; revisiting frames of memory, seeing your relationship (& yourself in it) with startling clarity.’
“The Alarmist” follows earlier tracks taken from Marigold: “Moment” and “Phase”. As 2019 turned into 2020 the band released Marigold’s lyrics and guitar tabs via their website and invited fans to record and post their own interpretations of the as-yet-unreleased songs. Fans posted their renderings online with the tag #PineTab throughout the new year. All submissions to date can be found on Pinegrove’s Instagram Page under their story highlights.
Formed in 2010 in Montclair, NJ by childhood friends Evan and drummer Zack Levine, Pinegrove have released three previous albums – Everything So Far (2015), Cardinal (2016), and Skylight (2018) – to critical acclaim, garnering them a widespread and devoted listenership. Marigold features Evan, Zack, Nick, as well as Josh Marre (who, outside of his usual guitar duties, doubles on bass for this record), Sam Skinner, Nandi Rose, Evan’s dad Doug Hall, and Zack & Nick’s dad Michael William Levine. Sam also engineered and co-produced the record, as he has on every Pinegrove recording since 2015.
While there is room for ambiguity in Evan’s hypnotic storytelling, its thesis is anchored as always in radical empathy. This is music that makes a humble yet confident case for inclusiveness and community, for tenderness and patience in a world that sometimes seems to have other plans. “This is a lifelong project,” Zack says, “We’re always thinking about how to be better humans and humanists. It’s about how to keep going, and to respond to the world as it is right now.”
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