(Photo Credit: Sharon Alagna)
The Naked and Famous premiered their newest track “Laid Low” on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 show today. The song is featured on their new, third album, Simple Forms, coming this October 14th, 2016 via Somewhat Damaged.
If there’s one thing that The Naked and Famous are never going to forget how to do, is to create incredibly pretty but awe-inspiringly loud hits. “Laid Low” features the band’s signature buzzsaw synths along with an anthemic marching-band inspired drum beat that chugs the track forward with every second.
Previously, the band had released their lead single from Simple Forms “Higher” and along with it announced an extensive North American tour to accompany the release. The track is emotionally wrecking, echoing equally great amounts of “both pain and passion,” along with a plethora of sharp synths that accentuate Alisa Xayalith’s amazing voice.
Originally hailing from New Zealand to land in Los Angeles, The Naked and Famous have carved a fiercely autonomous path to this creative peak and delivered an album that showcases their finely polished, self-produced sound.
Simple Forms was conceived in the Echo Park home studio of guitarist/vocalist/producer Thom Powers at a point where the band had come close to tearing apart under the strain of the breakdown of the eight year romance between Powers and co-vocalist Alisa Xayalith.
Their ability to pull euphoric electronic pop from the shadows is undiminished and “Higher” is another example of the group’s soaring dynamics at play.
“My production idea in The Naked and Famous has always been to set the insularity of our songwriting in a space where intimacy and explosive excitement can bring tension and release,” says Powers. “To me, that is what contemporary pop should be. Our ambition is that this music be noticed and we’re proud of what we’ve achieved in the studio.”
The album is the long awaited follow up to their 2011 smash debut Passive Me, Aggressive You, which featured breakthrough tracks “Young Blood” and “Punching In A Dream”, and 2013’s epic, emotionally charged album In Rolling Waves.
Check out “Laid Low” here:
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