The Tubs Announce New Album Hard Life: Hear “Who’s Gonna Love You Now?”

3 days ago 7

The Tubs, your jangly, folky British post-punk favorites, announced their signing to Merge Records this past spring by successfully translating Metallica's classic heavy metal ballad "Fade To Black" into their own signature style. The news came barely a year after Cotton Crown, yet it portended a new album announcement sooner rather than later. Today it has come: Tubs LP3 Hard Life will be out on the never-forgettable date of 9/11.

Lead single "Who's Gonna Love You Now?" presents the Tubs in their element: rhythm section brimming with nervous energy, guitars chiming and tangling, Owen Williams bellowing with Richard Thompson-esque gravitas. "So say you’re gonna move to London/ Well who’s gonna pay the rent?" he sings. "Say you’re gonna join the TSG/ Well, it’s your life/ Baby it’s your life/ But who’s gonna be there waiting when it falls down?" No one's making neurotic finger-snappers like this crew.

Per Williams, on Hard Life he pairs his familiar persona — "navel gazing about romantic abjection, London squalor, and the indignities of grief and OCD" — with a second that "doesn't have much time for the first, often haranguing him for his self-indulgence and immaturity; sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly." It's this "scold" persona we hear on "Who's Gonna Love You Now?"

More from Williams:

This is a sort of Northern Soul, Royal Headache influenced pop number with organs. The lyrics are from my scold persona - it’s a kind of anti-sexual freedom, pro-monogamy song. I sermonise that the other Owen will end up lonely and unhappy if he takes a grass is greener approach to life, moves to London and so on. I think the scold doesn’t live in London. Whereas I and the classic Tubs persona do.

Listen below.

TRACKLIST:
01 "Hard Life"
02 "Who’s Gonna Love You Now?"
03 "If You Don’t Love Me"
04 "Stoop To Me"
05 "Heaven Or London"
06 "Didn’t I Say?"
07 "Do Yourself A Favor"
08 "Now And Then"
09 "The Way It Goes"
10 "Hell"
11 "In Your Place"
12 "As Long as You Leave"

Hard Life is out 9/11 on Merge. Pre-order it here. As far as we know, the statue is not in the band.