Therapy? unleashes new album 'Cleave'

By Andy/There's Something Hard in There

As the world unravels before us, teetering on its flimsy axis of fucked-up-edness and idiocy, Therapy? emerges before thine eyes with a document of eye-gouging proportions to help us deal with these woes.

Enter "Cleave," and hopefully we'll exit upon copious listens as less-troubled music fans and citizens of this planet. Or as close as we can get to that dream, anyway.

"So this new one, really, the theme in that is fracture and division. Fracture and division in politics, fracture and division in borders and also fracture and division in psyche," guitarist/vocalist Andy Cairns told this blog last February, not long after the band put the finishing touches on its 15th studio album, which was gladly released Sept. 21 on Marshall Records.

The lyrics deal with a mind-boggling and capital WHY people "keep prying each other apart when they should be clinging to each other now that the world seems more at loss than ever," Cairns added.

Clutching onto music and friendship can surely become a crucial driving force to provide hope and healing. These 10 sharp, riveting and melodic bursts from the sturdy hands and steely throats of Cairns, bassist Michael McKeegan and drummer Neil Cooper belt us into the present, but also tug us into our past relationship with both Therapy? and our own personal life journeys.

Getting from there to here, we've made positive strides in our lives and experienced hardships, but we've always managed to keep afloat and surge toward better times ahead.

So, Therapy? take us back to when they first stomped into our ears and walk us down a familiar path paved with stones from their past, but also provide us -- and themselves -- with a fresh approach to their wicked and wonderful ways.

Stellar times, people and places from days past flash before your eyes and you're stoked to be along for this Therapy? express ride once again. Things get unhinged, they lock into place, and then splay apart again... it wakes you the fuck up and points you toward finding solutions to whatever needs fixing.

It needs to start now. Therapy? is your companion on this march.