Toronto indie rockers Fast Romantics soundtracked last summer with their single "Do No Wrong," and now they're back with a new full-length. Pick It Up is out August 6 via the band's own Postwar Records, and Exclaim! has the premiere of the video for the title track.
Pick It Up comes from a lengthy period of creativity in which Fast Romantics recorded numerous songs, but in a fit of self-doubt, frontman Matt Angus dragged his heels on finishing them off. Once coronavirus lockdowns began, the band set about completing the songs, eventually splitting them up into two distinct records. Pick It Up is the first of those two albums. Additional production and mixing came from Marcus Paquin (Arcade Fire, the National).
Title cut "Pick It Up" is a grandly swelling, uplifting piano ballad inspired by Angus's lifelong experiences with depression and anxiety. He explained in a statement:
At some tipping point, I forced myself to sit at the piano, and this childhood memory of my mother came flooding in. My mother is an all-powerful, unstoppable force of nature. She has more energy than an Olympic sprinter, she fights through anything that comes her way, and she's been through some tough shit in her life. When I was a kid, I'd oscillate similarly as I do now between bouts of confident, prolific creativity and unstoppable malaise. If in one of those low phases as a 14-year-old I'd be lying on the couch hypnotized by a television for too long, she'd inevitably be there, telling me to pick myself up and do something useful. But all grown up, hearing that voice in my head that morning at the piano, it all at once snapped me out of it.
The accompanying quarantine-themed video shows band members hanging out at home and poking their heads out of windows to bang on percussion instruments. There are also some grainy flashbacks of the band performing together in past shows and videos.
Watch the "Pick It Up" video below, where you'll also find the album's tracklist. It's available to pre-order right here.
Pick It Up:
1. Pick It Up
2. Only People
3. Made for You
4. Hallelujah, What's It to Ya?
5. The Rules
6. Top of the Mountain
7. Iso Radio
8. Do No Wrong
Pick It Up comes from a lengthy period of creativity in which Fast Romantics recorded numerous songs, but in a fit of self-doubt, frontman Matt Angus dragged his heels on finishing them off. Once coronavirus lockdowns began, the band set about completing the songs, eventually splitting them up into two distinct records. Pick It Up is the first of those two albums. Additional production and mixing came from Marcus Paquin (Arcade Fire, the National).
Title cut "Pick It Up" is a grandly swelling, uplifting piano ballad inspired by Angus's lifelong experiences with depression and anxiety. He explained in a statement:
At some tipping point, I forced myself to sit at the piano, and this childhood memory of my mother came flooding in. My mother is an all-powerful, unstoppable force of nature. She has more energy than an Olympic sprinter, she fights through anything that comes her way, and she's been through some tough shit in her life. When I was a kid, I'd oscillate similarly as I do now between bouts of confident, prolific creativity and unstoppable malaise. If in one of those low phases as a 14-year-old I'd be lying on the couch hypnotized by a television for too long, she'd inevitably be there, telling me to pick myself up and do something useful. But all grown up, hearing that voice in my head that morning at the piano, it all at once snapped me out of it.
The accompanying quarantine-themed video shows band members hanging out at home and poking their heads out of windows to bang on percussion instruments. There are also some grainy flashbacks of the band performing together in past shows and videos.
Watch the "Pick It Up" video below, where you'll also find the album's tracklist. It's available to pre-order right here.
Pick It Up:
1. Pick It Up
2. Only People
3. Made for You
4. Hallelujah, What's It to Ya?
5. The Rules
6. Top of the Mountain
7. Iso Radio
8. Do No Wrong
