After the cold response to their 2000 album Freak Magnet, the Violent Femmes essentially swore off new music, opting instead to focus on their energies on the road, but this year they made a low-key studio comeback with Happy New Year, a surprisingly solid little EP that remained true to the spirit of their classic albums. Now they've got a full-length on the way: We Can Do Anything, their ninth album, will come out on Friday, March 4.
Here's what we know about it:
* It's their first full-length with Dresden Dolls drummer Brian Viglione, who replaced Victor DeLorenzo.
* It's produced by Milwaukee's Jeff Hamilton, who has long played in the Horns of Dilemma, the Femmes' revolving cast of backing instrumentalists, and mixed by John Agnello, whose done fine work with Dinosaur Jr. and Kurt Vile. The band recorded it "in studios in Brooklyn, Nashville, Los Angeles, Milwaukee and Denver, while on tour during the summer of 2015," according to a press release.
* Barenaked Ladies' Kevin Hearn drew the album and also "contributed accordion, guitar, keyboards, and backing vocals on several recordings."
* Some of these songs go back a bit. "Gano gathered the album's material by diving headlong into his own voluminous archives, listening to ancient cassette demos and leafing through old journals in search of suitable songs."
So it sounds like it could be really great, or a complete mess—in other words it's a Violent Femmes album.
