interrobang - CD

SWITCHFOOT reaches a bold new creative peak on interrobang, the 12th full-length album of the multi-platinum selling rock band’s 25+ year career.

Brimming with child-like imagination and a futuristic mindset, the confident, audacious interrobang surprises with each listen, racing around unexpected corners, seemingly hitting ambitious new heights at every turn. Working with producer Tony Berg (Phoebe Bridgers, Andrew Bird) at renowned Sound City studio in Van Nuys, CA and the band’s own studio in Carlsbad, CA throughout last year and into 2021, SWITCHFOOT: Jon Foreman, Tim Foreman, Chad Butler, Jerome Fontamillas, and Drew Shirley recorded the album in a burst of pent-up mid-pandemic creativity. Fearlessly marrying 60’s experimentalism and synth-driven new wave swagger, the band pushed past its comfort zones and retooled its sound, all while retaining their sense of equilibrium and rediscovering their joy of making music.

The resulting interrobang is an absorbing series of sharply drawn short stories underscored by a dizzying array of textures both vintage and modern presented in stark, fluorescent technicolor. Adding to the fun twisty ride, the band nods to their myriad influences melding fluid Beach Boys style vocal arrangements and Beatle-esque harmonies with aural flourishes reminiscent of 80’s radio faves Split Enz, World Party, Thompson Twins and “Raspberry Beret” era Prince, to name a few.

Unfolding with a swirl of baskmasking psychedelia, the existential album opener “beloved” soon reaches a full wall-of-sound grandeur. Similarly, on other tracks like the seductive stunner “lost ‘cause,” the 2020 kiss-off “if i were you,” the x-rayed relationships in “the bones of us,” the difficult wisdom learned along “the hard way,” and the epic disillusionment in “splinters,” songwriting tandem Jon and Tim Foreman’s themes of alienation and self-reflection are amplified by the record’s inventive use of density and dynamics. Credit veteran mixer Tchad Blake (Arctic Monkeys, Fiona Apple) with aiding the album’s brilliant three-dimensional sound. With the enthralling interrobang, SWITCHFOOT makes it abundantly clear, this time sitting back and staying on the sidelines is not an option.

 Track List:

1. beloved
2. lost ‘cause
3. fluorescent
4. if i were you
5. the bones of us
6. splinter
7. i need you (to be wrong)
8. the hard way
9. wolves
10. backwards in time
11. electricity