Album announce | Jeremy Neale
We're excited to share in the news of Jeremy Neale's new album 'We Were Trying to Make it Out', due Feb 2020. With news of the announcement Jeremy has shared the first single 'Everything I Do Is Replaced By Two' + video clip, premiered on Triple J's Home & Hosed and streaming world wide today.
Neale says of the track "Life is demanding and the seemingly infinite to-do list is a brutal beast sworn to make sure you can never truly relax. There’s a dream where you get to the end of it and you’re free. But it never happens. Like the many-headed hydra of Greek Mythology, for every foe you strike down, two emerge to replace it."
Since his 2017 debut album release, Neale has had some great wins, he took out the 2018 Queensland Music Award for Song of The Year for single Dancin’ & Romancin’, signed a global publishing deal with GAGA Music, received extensive play across US college radio and was the recipient of the Grant McLennan Fellowship.
As part of this fellowship Neale spent three months in New York City during 2018, attending a songwriting masterclass at NYU, collaborating with local writers and as it turns out, most importantly, resetting his life. Many years stuck in a cycle of ever-changing work, relentless side-hustling and various degrees of financial ruin had taken a toll and the opportunity to escape the pressure cooker for a brief period of time helped immensely to cure the burnout.
Sonically, We Were Trying to Make It Out contains Neale’s penchant for melodic hooks, delivered coherently and directly without compromise or pastiche. This is the Jeremy Neale sound - the result of years of searching and refining - honest, fully realised and immediate. Guitar pop underpinned by classic songwriting is potentially the recipe for finding oneself outside the current musical climate but is also the hallmark of creating something truly timeless.
On We Were Trying to Make It Out Neale explains the album title as the justification for the brutality you’ll put yourself through in an attempt to escape your demons.“There are a lot of sacrifices you have to make in order to create music if you’re not major label backed or independently wealthy and every mistake you make has direct consequences for your everyday quality of life."
We Were Trying to Make It Out is a record written across two cities and two years. Early Jeremy Neale recordings might have read as a tribute to those who came before him, but here on his second record - he has found his sound and his voice.
Album artwork by Jeff Andersen Jnr
