In what’s become like a bittersweet farewell present (at least, for the next few months), Gang of Youths have this week dropped a brand new track for fans in “What Can I Do If The Fire Goes Out?”. If you were able to catch the boys performing recently at the Laneway Festival, you would’ve been amongst the first to hear the tune live – a hot indicator of the calibre of music to come on their highly anticipated sophomore album, Go Farther In Lightness.
Speaking with frontman David Le’aupepe about the new record last year, he opened up about the direction he’s headed in.
“It’s about empathy, finding humanness and trying to negotiate the sickness of soul as a millennial with no clue.”
“I think I’m excited about this shit because it’s so much less about my relationship to someone else or to another external thing, and just [about] me trying to figure my shit out. That’s what people need to hear from me right now, I think. It’s what I need to say.”
Somewhere between The National, Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene, the song is urgent, an urgency fans of the band will have come to be familiar with. However, there is a vibrancy permeating through “What Can I Do…” that has cast a new light across them. Anthemic, frenetic and not wasting a damn second, the band comes together stronger than what we heard on The Positions (which already set a high bar) – a perfect snapshot of the tight brotherhood that exists between the five piece.
Currently in the US ahead of a New York residency, Gang of Youths will be relocating to the UK, returning upon the release of Go Father in Lightness before jetting off again, no doubt.
Check out the new single below and hold that candle out in your window for the boys until they eventually return home.
Photo by Maclay Heriot.
———-
