Chris Farren announces his incredible new album, Doom Singer, out on August 4 via Polyvinyl. Farren made his name recording with Jeff Rosenstock in Antarctigo Vespucci and now-defunct Floridian punk band Fake Problems, but all work under his own name has been created by Farren in self-described “miserable” isolation…until now. Doom Singer was produced, engineered and mixed by multi-instrumentalist/producer, and Jay Som mastermind Melina Duterte (who also performs on the record) in her Atwater Village studio. It was also written entirely with live drummer Frankie Impastato, and features Rosenstock on the occasional bass and saxophone. “Looking back on those records… I have no good memories of making them,” Farren says of his previous solo output. “It’s always been a lonely, doubt-ridden process.” This new, collaborative method breathes new life into Farren’s songs, which are huge, cathartic, catchy as hell, and inspired by what Farren describes as the “sixties-tinged girl group vibe.” And the result is as genuine, empathetic, and of course, funny, as Farren is, and though he claims nihilistic tendencies, it’s the dogged optimism that shines through. 

To celebrate the album announcement, Chris Farren is sharing the lead single “Cosmic Leash” alongside a ‘ground-breaking’ music video. Leaving behind the anxiety that caused him to agonize over every minute detail of his past work, Farren “wanted to open these songs up, make them less frenetic, and not feel the pressure to cram every moment,” he says. You hear that impulse on lead single “Cosmic Leash,” which opens with a wall of sound that careens to a halt, as Farren delivers his interlude over the slight strumming of a guitar. That sense of reprieve lasts only a moment, before the enormous chorus shreds through the silence as Farren wails: “Change your heart/ Wait your turn.” Farren says,“‘Cosmic Leash’ is about fighting the urge to romanticize the past but inevitably succumbing to the sentimental rot of nostalgia.

Photo Courtesy: Kat Nijmeddin