White Lung
photo by Lindsey Byrnes

White Lung return and announce final album, 'Premonition,' share two songs

Vancouver punks White Lung have been very quiet for the past five years, but now they’re back… for one last record. Their fifth and final album is called Premonition and due December 2 via Domino (pre-order). The album reunites the trio with producer Jesse Gander, who worked on their early records (including 2014’s Deep Fantasy, which topped our list of the best punk albums of the 2010s), and it’s the band’s first album since singer Mish Barber-Way became a mother of two, and themes of motherhood and pregnancy inform the album, as you can hear on lead singles “Date Night” and “Tomorrow.”

“I felt like that part of my life was expiring, so I was projecting those angry and scared feelings out onto the city of L.A. because it’s safe and comfortable to live in your anger instead of being self-reflective,” Mish says of “Date Night.” She also says “Tomorrow” is “the song I wrote when I found out I was pregnant. There was a very serious understanding that life would be different forever and I was relieved to welcome that change.” Check out both songs and their videos (directed by the band’s longtime visual artist Justin Gradin, who also designed the new album cover) below.

Mish also discussed the album in an interview with Melissa Broder, the person behind the @sosadtoday Twitter account. Here’s an excerpt about how pregnancy led to this being the first White Lung album Mish wrote while sober:

I was writing while I was pregnant with my son, not knowing that I was having a boy, so it was strange because it was the first time I had to write sober. It was sad that I had never sung a single vocal track without alcohol. I was also going through pregnancy hormones and major body changes. I felt like all my creativity was being sucked into the fetus. I couldn’t write. The words weren’t coming to me like they used to. It was like this baby inside me was taking up everything I had. I was consumed. I became fixated on that feeling, so the album is about the transition to motherhood, pregnancy, and the massive life change that I embarked on during the lull between our last album. The first three songs were written, then I found out I was pregnant, and Premonition became about that.

She also expanded on the story behind “Date Night”:

When Kenny and Anne-Marie showed me this song I sat with it for a minute then the image of being in a Cadillac on a date with God just kind of popped into my head. I think I was also disturbed with the state of the world, and with Los Angeles and my life there. I felt like that part of my life was expiring, so I was projecting those angry and scared feelings out onto the city of L.A. because it’s safe and comfortable to live in your anger instead of being self-reflective. I was imagining driving around Hollywood with God like we’re in the flying car at the end of Grease and just asking him what he thinks about the world. God would be drunk and laughing and smoking and telling me what a joke we all are and how we screwed it all up. And, of course God is hot. I also imagined a God-sized match, lighting it and throwing it out the back of the car as the city burned. Maybe I was just saying good-bye to my old life, but it felt very fun and freeing.

And had this to say about reuniting with producer Jesse Gander:

We love working with Jesse. He has known our band through our entire existence. The intimate story of pregnancy on this album also deeply involves Jesse… he was the first one to know I was pregnant, before my husband!

We wanted to return to our punk roots as far as production goes, but we also wanted to take our time and record in chunks. Paradise was made in Los Angeles under a tight time limit and Lars Stalfors did an incredible job polishing those songs with us into beautiful, gritty glitter, but this time around we wanted to be able to enjoy the luxury of time…and that really is an understatement considering how long it has taken this record to finally come out. Kenneth went back and did a lot of guitar work. Sonically, this is a very busy and complex record. This album on a whole is very journal-esque. I needed to barf it out and be uncool. Afterall, I’m a mom now. It’s alright to be uncool.

Read the whole interview here.

White Lung Premonition

Tracklist
1. Hysteric
2. Date Night
3. Tomorrow
4. Under Glass
5. Mountain
6. If You’re Gone
7. Girl
8. Bird
9. One Day
10. Winter