"It's really funny, there are no long songs on the LP." That's what Merchandise frontman Carson Cox told NME when queried about "Begging For Your Life/In The City Light," which was the lone, 14-minute slow-burner on their first release for vaunted UK imprint 4AD.
"This next LP is the most proper pop record we have ever done," he added. "I'm talking about pop rock - R&B."
That LP — recorded over six months in a house right here in Tampa — finally has a name (After The End), and is set for release on August 25. The 10-song effort clocks in at just 45 minutes long, and finds Cox & Co. controlling every aspect of the process except for mixing. That task was assigned to Gareth Jones, a man whose been at the helms of classics like Depeche Mode's Construction Time Again and neo-classics like Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest.
The announcement didn't come unadorned either, as the band has released a video for After The End's seventh track, "Little Killer." The track was inspired by late English poet/soldier Wilfred Owen, and the clip is a green-screen gem that finds the band existing in a menagerie of technicolor spliced in with clips from old TV shows.
Have a look at the clip along with a full tracklist below, and see the artwork for After The End above. Digital pre-orders are happening here, and you can see Merchandise's impressive slate of European and domestic tour dates here.
Merchandise - 'After The End' Tracklist:
01. Corridor
02. Enemy
03. True Monument
04. Green Lady
05. Life Outside The Mirror
06. Telephone
07. Little Killer
08. Looking Glass Waltz
09. After The End
10. Exile And Ego