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Feb 21, 2018 By Christopher Roberts Photography by Shervin Lainez Speedy Ortiz

Speedy Ortiz have announced a new album, Twerp Verse, and shared a video for its first single, “Lucky 88.” Twerp Verse is due out April 27 via Carpark. Emily Yoshida directed the “Lucky 88” video, which makes fun of our phone-addicted culture and features a strange green slime that is killing people. Watch it below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover art. Also below are the band’s upcoming tour dates.

Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley) mixed Twerp Verse, which was mastered by Emily Lazar (HAIM, Beck). For this album the band welcomes a new guitarist, Andy Molholt, who joins Sadie Dupuis (vocals, guitars, synths), Darl Ferm (bass), and Mike Falcone (drums). The band originally recorded an album in the fall of 2016, but following the 2016 Presidential election and Donald Trump’s victory, they scrapped the album and started over, with Dupuis writing all new songs over a four-month period.

“The songs on the album that were strictly personal or lovey dovey just didn’t mean anything to me anymore - that’s not the kind of music I’ve found healing or motivating in the past few years, and I was surprised I’d written so much of it,” explains Dupuis in a press release. “Social politics and protest have been a part of our music from day one, and I didn’t want to stop doing that on this album.”

Dupuis had this to say about the album’s title, Twerp Verse: “You need to employ a self-preservational sense of humor to speak truth in an increasingly baffling world. I call it a ‘twerp verse’ when a musician guests on a track and says something totally outlandish - like a Lil Wayne verse - but it becomes the most crucial part. I like ‘twerp’ as a diss, but in this meaning, the twerp is doing a service - shaking things up by being bold, not complacent, never silent.”

In terms of the “Lucky 88” video, Dupuis offered this explanation: “For the video, we wanted something evil, glossy, cynical, and camp. Our director Emily Yoshida came up with a concept that addresses our reliance on technology and apps that’s so absorbing, it’s hard to engage with the outside world, even when it is literally being consumed by slime (and, hello, global warming, melting ice, coral bleaching, impending heat death, make no mistake, it IS being consumed by slime).”

Twerp Verse is the band’s third album and the follow-up to 2015’s Foil Deer. In 2016 Dupuis also released a solo album, Slugger, under the name Sad13.

Twerp Verse Tracklist:

1. Buck Me Off
2. Lean In When I Suffer
3. Lucky 88
4. Can I Kiss You?
5. Backslidin’
6. Villain
7. I’m Blessed
8. Sport Death
9. Alone with Girls
10. Moving In
11. You Hate The Title

Speedy Ortiz Tour Dates:

3/13-16/18 - Austin, TX - SXSW
4/21/18 - Lansing, MI - Stoopfest
5/3/18 - Hamden, CT - Space Ballroom
5/5/18 - Washington, DC - Black Cat
5/7/18 - Norfolk, VA - Charlie’s American Cafe
5/8/18 - Durham, NC - The Pinhook
5/9/18 - Atlanta, GA - The Masquerade - Purgatory
5/10/18 - Nashville, TN - The High Watt
5/12/18 - Chicago, IL - Subterranean
5/13/18 - Detroit, MI - El Club
5/14/18 - Toronto, ON - The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern
5/15/18 - Montreal, QC -La Vitrola
5/17/18 - Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall of Williamsburg
5/29/18 - Lakewood, OH - Mahall’s
5/30/18 - Louisville, KY - Zanzabar
6/1/18 - Little Rock, AR - Stickyz Rock’n'Roll Chicken Shack
6/2/18 - Austin, TX - Barracuda
6/3/18 - Dallas, TX - Club Dada
6/5/18 - Phoenix, AZ - Rebel Lounge
6/6/18 - San Diego, CA - Soda Bar
6/7/18 - Los Angeles, CA - The Echo
6/9/18 - Oakland, CA - Starline Social Club
6/10/18 - San Francisco, CA - Cafe Du Nord
6/12/18 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge
6/13/18 - Seattle, WA - The Vera Project
6/14/18 - Boise, ID - Neurolux
6/16/18 - Denver, CO - Larimer Lounge
6/17/18 - Omaha, NE - Reverb
6/19/18 - St. Louis, MO - Blueberry Hill’s Duck Room
6/20/18 - Indianapolis, IN - The Hi-Fi

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