Singer-songwriter Justin Courtney Pierre has announced new extended play An Anthropologist On Mars arriving March 12. The news was garrisoned by the release of the EP’s first look, “Dying To Know.”

The single is supported with a lyric video, sort of. The visualizer contains the sunset washed landscape as seen on the untrodden extended plays cover art. Unlike a regular lyric video however, the words to the tune are not explicitly included. The words sung are conglomerated and mangled over one another as they appear in the typeface, forming new words that read like a drunkard singing Pierre’s new release.

As for the song itself, Pierre’s pop punk demeanor is front and center over a concise blend of twangy guitar strokes and hotfooted drum tempo shifts. The guitar solo that dominates the middle of the song hearkens back to the early days of 90’s alternative music, with its familiar brash embrace.

In a press statement, Pierre contemplates the root of the artist he cultivates from himself, “A strange thing happens when a person experiences trauma at a young age. Your body and your mind find a way to protect you from it. It helps for a while until it doesn’t. Add to that an overactive imagination and a shitload of drugs, and suddenly reality isn’t so obvious.”

Pierre continues, “Over time, the lines get so blurred, you can’t even trust your own memories. This is essentially what these songs are about. That confused area where, once the fog is lifted and the excavation begins, you start to see the buried bits of this and that residing beneath the false veneer you weren’t even aware of in the first place, yet robotically kept up for over forty years because you never thought to question its validity.”

Justin Courtney Pierre is the co-founder and lead vocalist for the pop punk outfit Motion City Soundtrack. His debut solo album, In The Drink, was released in 2018.

AN ANTHROPOLOGIST ON MARS TRACK LISTING:

1. Dying to Know
2. I Hate Myself
3. Footsteps
4. Promise Not to Change
5. Illumination