On his upcoming album, Taste Like Labor, Dave Scanlon was thinking about photographs, thinking about how these brief snapshots are descriptive of gatherings, of people coming together, and never of them falling apart. With that in mind, Dave set about trying to document sentiment, and attempt at sonically cataloguing feelings. The result is twelve songs that seek to capture moments, and then let them exist outside of their origins, taking these initial ideas and letting them grow. The truly magical album will arrive in April, and ahead of the release today Dave is premiering the first single from it, Fearful People.

Sonically on his new album, Dave seems to have picked up where he left off on 2021’s Pink in each, bright blue, bright green, letting his voice and guitar drive his lyrically fabulous songs forward. Yet for this record Dave decided to also trust in the production skills of Shannon Fields, who also produced two of Dave’s previous records, and the result is a sound that swells far beyond it’s minimal origins. On Fearful People, the percussive pulse of the guitar is adorned, with a swell of organ and an increasingly free-form second guitar, lifting the track towards the sonic heavens, nodding to the likes of Here We Go Magic or Tōth.

It exists for little more than a minute and a half, yet Fearful People is unafraid to pack a lyrical punch, it touches on autonomy, and the importance of finding moments for yourself even when you’re a cog in a larger machine, be it a familial group or a work place. Dave tells us of the struggles of, “defensive fearful people in violent homes”, yet also finds time to breathe in the air of returning home, “you miss your home, you smell your friends, you taste like labor”. Fearful People serves as something of an invite, an enticing introduction to a record, yet one that doesn’t give too much away, like a good book you’re left wanting to read the next chapter, even if for now I’m afraid you’re just going to have to wait.

Taste Like Labor is out April 14th via Whatever’s Clever. For more information on Dave Scanlon visit http://www.davescanlon.com/