Power pop and alternative rock band The Rentals, led by former Weezer bassist Matt Sharp have announced Q36, the project’s first album in nearly six years. The band have also released a new song entitled “Spaceships,” in support of the upcoming album project, and have announced Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner and record producer Dave Fridmann as collaborators for the new project.
“Spaceships,” is accompanied by an eclectic lyric videos, which shows two women in 1980s styled clothing dancing along to the track. The song takes a lot of new wave era sounds with a strong synth opening, electric guitars and a dance beat which are complimented by Sharp’s vocals and catchy pop hooks.
“‘Spaceships’ is a science fiction fable that imagines an overpopulated future where the spacefaring nations of the world decide to shoot their citizen’s dealing with mental health conditions into deep outer space for experimental purposes; essentially using them as laboratory specimens, testing their tolerance of extreme levels of radiation,” Sharp explained in a press release. “But a funny thing happened on the way to Europa… the inmates commandeered this intergalactic psychiatric ward, taking control of the ships and ultimately, their lives. They flipped their mobile home, converting it into a Parliament Funkadelic-style flying party saucer and went looking to start a more tolerant new world.”
Each iteration of The Rentals features new members who appear with Sharp on each project. Their previous album release Lost in Alphaville featured members of The Black Keys and The Section Quartet as part of the band. Lost in Alphaville was the band’s first project in 15 years, following Seven More Minutes which was released in 1999 and Return of the Rentals, their 1995 debut project. Their 2014 project took a more glossy approach to indie rock, with clear influences from 1990s power pop.
“Beyond the music itself, Q36 is my excuse to start experimenting with a diverse group of independent artists and creative communities that I have only recently come to admire,” Sharp elaborated on the new project. “In this moment, I am looking at each of the album’s 16 individual songs as a kind of launch point for all of us to dig a little deeper into the music, go under the surface, to see what may or may not resonate, search for little meaningful connections between us; then blow on whatever spark we find, as we begin to discover and create entirely new things, together.”
This new record will also host a partnership with Joseph Gordon Levitt’s egalitarian online creative platform HITRECORD, which seeks to bring like-minded creatives together.
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