News

Today Ted Leo released the first music video from his upcoming album The Hanged Man, “Can’t Go Back.” The video is reminiscent of 1970s commercials for K-Tel compilations, in somewhat-jarring contrast to the song’s heavy, if elusive, lyrics (“Moonlight shattered on this stretch of sea / How many times I stood here mapping how it shattered me”). Note that the phone number at the end isn’t just to order the record.

The Hanged Man, his first album since 2010’s The Brutalist Bricks (Matador), will be self-released on September 8 (digital) and September 22 (physical).  The album, credited solely to Ted Leo, is his 13th full-length, but his first using only his own name.

The songs on The Hanged Man, recorded at a home-studio-in-transition in Wakefield, RI, with Ted playing almost all the instruments, are some of the finest and most finely wrought of Ted’s career. There are familiar sharp bursts of skinny-tie pop-punk—and even these feel streamlined like never before—but they’re offset with an adventurousness in both tone and structure. Ted describes the time working on the album as one of “personal desolation that felt fallow but was actually very fertile” and, indeed, The Hanged Man is crushingly heavy at times, but is ultimately inspiring, even uplifting. Some insight can be found in this recent Stereogum interview.

TOUR DATES

9-09     New York, NY - Seaport Music Festival
9-14     Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer
9-15     Washington, DC - Black Cat
9-16     Washington, DC - Black Cat
9-17     Allston, MA - Brighton Music Hall
9-19     Toronto, ON - Lee’s Palace
9-20     Detroit, MI - Magic Stick
9-22     Chicago, IL- Goose Island Block Party
9-23     Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop
9-24     Pittsburgh, PA - Spirit Hall
10-23   Richmond, VA - Strange Matter
10-24   Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle
10-25   Atlanta, GA - The Masquerade - Hell Stage
10-27   Dallas, TX - Club Dada
10-28   Austin, TX - Mohawk
10-30   Santa Fe, NM - Meow Wolf
10-31   Phoenix, AZ - Valley Bar
11-01   San Diego, CA - Casbah
11-03   Los Angeles, CA - The Teragram Ballroom
11-04   San Francisco, CA - Bimbo’s 365 Club
11-06   Portland, OR - Revolution Hall
11-07   Vancouver, BC - Cobalt
11-08   Seattle, WA - The Crocodile
11-11   Minneapolis, MN - Triple Rock
11-13   Columbus, OH - Skully's
12-02   Providence, RI - Columbus Theatre
12-03   Portland, ME - Port City Music Hall
12-04   Burlington, VT- Arts Riot
12-05   Montreal, QC - La Sala Rossa
12-07   Ithaca, NY - The Haunt
12-08   Hamden, CT - The Ballroom at The Outer Space
12-09   Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall of Williamsburg