The trans-Tasman icons return for their first album in over a decade.
More than ten years since their last album hit shelves around the world, Neil Finn and co. are returning to release a brand new Crowded House record this year.
Dreamers Are Waiting, which will arrive on Friday June 4, will act as the seventh full-length effort and their first since returning from an indefinite hiatus in 2019, with the band initially being booked to make their live return at last year’s Bluesfest.
The album is comprised of material written by founding members Neil Finn and bassist Nick Seymour, as well as Neil’s son Liam and his younger brother/drummer Elroy. The ensemble is rounded out by the addition of keyboardist Mitchell Froom, who also produced the new record.
“I’ve always been afraid of just repeating the same formulas, and somehow this feels like a fresh and authentic way to reapproach Crowded House today with an awareness of all our history and where, how and why it began in the first place,” Neil Finn said of the band’s return.
“The original band mentality and philosophy in still in there, especially with Mitchell now part of it again, working in a different way along with Nick and I.”
Throughout the statement, Finn described the band’s recording process as they made Dreamers Are Waiting amid the COVID-19 lockdown, as well as hinting at the prospect of performing new material on the band’s upcoming mini-tour of New Zealand.
“We were fortunate to be recording in the studio right before lockdown and so began this album with band tracks recorded live in a room, all brimming with character and energy,” he said.
“We then spent our strangest year, 2020, at distance from each other but connecting daily, swapping files and making those tracks complete. We’re so excited and grateful to be back in one room together now, rehearsing, first to play live in front of audiences in NZ and soon we hope for the rest of the world.”
The news of Dreamers Are Waiting has been accompanied by the release of a new single ‘To The Island’, a jaunty number that follows a similar path to last year’s ‘Whatever You Want’. Listen to it below.
Dreamers Are Waiting is out on Friday June 5. Preorder it here.
