It’s Finally Here! Nation of Language have released their fourth album and full-length Sub Pop debut “Dance Called Memory!” Synthpop, minimal wave, post-punk, goth, new romantic — fans and critics alike have dug deeply into their vintage thesauruses to describe the beguiling work of the Brooklyn trio. And if you can’t precisely define the band, that’s the point. Current breakout radio single “Inept Apollo” is Now followed by focus “I’m Not Ready for the Change”!
Nation of Language frontman Ian Richard Devaney has become prodigious in expanding what synthesizer-driven music can evoke, such that his output is as much an extrasensory journey as it is an all-too-human destination. With that experience in mind, he wrote the band’s fourth album — the spectral, spacious 10-track “Dance Called Memory”— in the most humble of ways: chipping away at melancholia by sitting around and strumming his guitar.
On the new album Nation of Language once again collaborated with friend and returning producer and collaborator Nick Millhiser (LCD Soundsystem, Holy Ghost!). “What’s so great about Nick is his ability to make us feel like we don’t need to do what might be expected of us,” says synth player Aidan Noell, who, along with bassist Alex MacKay, rounds out the Nation of Language lineup. They imbued the new album with a shifted palette — for example, smashing all of the percussion of “In Another Life” through a synthesizer to cast a shade of early-2000s electronic music or by sampling chopped-up drum breaks on “I’m Not Ready for the Change,” for a touch of Loveless-era My Bloody Valentine.
Ultimately, the trio’s hope was to weave raw vulnerability and humanity into a synth-heavy album. “As much as Kraftwerk is a sonically foundational influence, with this record I leaned much more towards the Eno school of thought,” Devaney says. “In this era quickly being defined by the rise of AI supplanting human creators I’m focusing more on the human condition, and I need the underlying music to support that… Instead of hopelessness, I want to leave the listener with a feeling of us really seeing one another, that our individual struggles can actually unite us in empathy.”
Nation of Language’s first three albums, “Introduction, Presence” (2020), “A Way Forward” (2021), and “Strange Disciple” (2023) came as pandemic-era godsends: gorgeous, relatable soundtracks to our collective doldrums.
Listen: Nation Of Language – “I’m Not Ready For The Change” (radio edit)
Nation Of Language – “I’m Not Ready For The Change” (radio edit)