Exploring Collapse and Catharsis with Album Focus Track
Qualifying Miles – Out This Friday via Grönland Records
New York, NY –
“One problem with constantly mining your own personal life for lyrical inspiration is that you sometimes catch yourself experiencing personal interactions through the lens of your own future lyrical depiction of the moment,” says We Are Scientists vocalist and guitarist Keith Murray about the band’s emotionally raw new single, “The Big One.”
He continues: “There’s a scene in Noah Baumbach’s Kicking and Screaming where a couple, fresh out of undergrad, are fighting over who gets to ‘use this material in a story.’ As a referendum on artistic solipsism, it haunts me to this day. I guess ‘The Big One’ is about those moments when things go so awry that that sort of in-the-moment arm’s-length analysis is no longer a possibility. Now you’re just in it. It also has maybe my favorite guitar solo ever, so, yeah.”
“The Big One” is the final preview of Qualifying Miles, the band’s highly anticipated ninth studio album, out this Friday, July 18 via Grönland Records. It follows a trio of emotionally rich singles that capture the band’s sharpened, guitar-forward direction and trademark lyrical wit: the aching, effervescent “Please Don’t Say It,” the shimmering, self-lacerating ballad “I Could Do Much Worse,” and “What You Want Is Gone,” a melancholic mid-tempo stunner paired with a fan-shot tour video that leans into memory, longing, and letting go.
Together, the four singles serve as a proper reintroduction to We Are Scientists: a band reflecting on their past without being trapped by it, chasing an immediacy that feels both familiar and revitalized. The album’s title, Qualifying Miles, plays like a wry nod to the band’s decades-long journey, but there’s no nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake here, this is a collection of songs that crackle with life and gut-punch emotional resonance.
Qualifying Miles is a stripped-down, emotionally expansive record that sees We Are Scientists embracing the ‘90s guitar rock influences that first lit the fuse back in their early Brooklyn days. Tracks like “Dead Letters,” “At The Mall In My Dreams” and “What You Want Is Gone” lean into themes of memory, impermanence, and the haunting weight of lost connections. But there’s levity, too — the band’s self-effacing humor and melodic swagger remain front and center.
Recorded with a “band in a room” ethos and a let-it-rip energy, Qualifying Miles finds longtime duo Keith Murray and Chris Cain pushing themselves toward something looser, louder, and more instinctive than anything they’ve done in years. For a band celebrating 20 years since their breakthrough debut With Love and Squalor, Qualifying Miles doesn’t feel like a victory lap — it feels like the start of something urgent and new.
QUALIFYING MILES – Tracklisting
- A Prelude to What
- Starry-Eyed
- Dead Letters
- The Big One
- Please Don’t Say It
- The Same Mistake
- What You Want Is Gone
- A Lesson I Never Learned
- I Could Do Much Worse
- I Already Hate This
- The Mall in My Dreams
- Promise Me
East Coast North American Tour Dates
We Are Scientists will support the release with an East Coast North American tour this fall, kicking off September 4th in Philadelphia and wrapping September 13th in Toronto.
- July 30 – Brooklyn, NYC – Union Pool SOLD OUT
- September 4 – Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s
- September 5 – Amherst, PA – The Drake
- September 6 – Baltimore, MD – Ottobar
- September 9 – Columbus, OH – Rumba Café
- September 10 – Ferndale, MI – The Magic Bag
- September 11 – Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle
- September 13 – Toronto, ON – Horseshoe Tavern
Listen to “The Big One” now and get ready for Qualifying Miles, out Friday, July 18 via Grönland Records.
We Are Scientists Online
Featured photo (top) by Sari Murray
