It's been more than three years since Tokyo Police Club released their last album, 2010's Champ, but they've now completed recording on their upcoming third full-length. Although the exact release details are still being arranged, the record will be out in early 2014.
The four-piece recorded the album at a handful of Toronto studios, including Phase One Studios and Revolution Recordings, with most of the tracking done at Candle Recording Studio. The sessions were produced by Doug Boehm (Girls, Islands), who also helped out during the Champ sessions, and mixed by Mark Needham (the Killers, Imagine Dragons).
So what does the new material sound like?
"First of all, it's way better, which is a plus," keyboardist Graham Wright tells Exclaim! "It's also a lot more direct. We just wanted to write choruses. Which isn't to say the verses and pre-choruses aren't good.... But there was a lot of concentrating on, 'What's the way that people are going to like this song? What's the way we can give people what we're trying to give with this song without obscuring it or without pulling our punches?'"
This resulted in songs that are more upbeat and pop-friendly than what the group has done before. Wright observes, "Remember when Weezer put out 'Hash Pipe,' or the Strokes put out 'Juicebox,' and everyone was like, 'That's weird, what happened there?' Because they would do those 'rock riffs,' and people were freaked out. I think there are a couple of those rock riffs on our record too — stuff that, three years ago, we would have jammed and laughed about and put in the garbage. This time we were like, 'Wait a minute, these are actually kind of fun and good. Let's turn them into songs.' And they ended up being the best songs on the record."
The tracks were written over an extended period using a variety of methods, ranging from practice room jams to stretches of months "where we would go into the studio and sit around a computer and edit MIDI in turns and painstakingly assemble counter-melodies or whatever," Wright says.
In the end, everyone ended up playing their usual instruments, with the results being slightly more guitar-oriented than usual. There are also no guest performers on the record, according to Wright.
Tokyo Police Club are currently wrapping up mastering and track order. The title hasn't been set in stone, but the album will likely be out in February or March 2014. In other words, we can probably expect details to be finalized and announced before too long.
The four-piece recorded the album at a handful of Toronto studios, including Phase One Studios and Revolution Recordings, with most of the tracking done at Candle Recording Studio. The sessions were produced by Doug Boehm (Girls, Islands), who also helped out during the Champ sessions, and mixed by Mark Needham (the Killers, Imagine Dragons).
So what does the new material sound like?
"First of all, it's way better, which is a plus," keyboardist Graham Wright tells Exclaim! "It's also a lot more direct. We just wanted to write choruses. Which isn't to say the verses and pre-choruses aren't good.... But there was a lot of concentrating on, 'What's the way that people are going to like this song? What's the way we can give people what we're trying to give with this song without obscuring it or without pulling our punches?'"
This resulted in songs that are more upbeat and pop-friendly than what the group has done before. Wright observes, "Remember when Weezer put out 'Hash Pipe,' or the Strokes put out 'Juicebox,' and everyone was like, 'That's weird, what happened there?' Because they would do those 'rock riffs,' and people were freaked out. I think there are a couple of those rock riffs on our record too — stuff that, three years ago, we would have jammed and laughed about and put in the garbage. This time we were like, 'Wait a minute, these are actually kind of fun and good. Let's turn them into songs.' And they ended up being the best songs on the record."
The tracks were written over an extended period using a variety of methods, ranging from practice room jams to stretches of months "where we would go into the studio and sit around a computer and edit MIDI in turns and painstakingly assemble counter-melodies or whatever," Wright says.
In the end, everyone ended up playing their usual instruments, with the results being slightly more guitar-oriented than usual. There are also no guest performers on the record, according to Wright.
Tokyo Police Club are currently wrapping up mastering and track order. The title hasn't been set in stone, but the album will likely be out in February or March 2014. In other words, we can probably expect details to be finalized and announced before too long.
