We Are Scientists state their 'Qualifying Miles' in July

Indie rock mainstays WE ARE SCIENTISTS' ninth studio album Qualifying Miles is due out on July 18 via Groenland Records. Nearing twenty years on from their commercial breakthrough, the NYC band - comprising founding members Keith Murray and Chris Cain - have returned to the music that shaped their childhoods, with echoes of ‘90s guitar music threading throughout the project. 

Alongside the album announcement, the band are sharing lead single, "Please Don’t Say It." 

On the track, Keith says: “I’m always happy to spew all kinds of drama in song, just don’t make me talk about it in person, okay? “Please Don’t Say It” is, I guess, a song about being unwillin to confront my glitches anywhere but in that very song. Except, now I’m talking here about using the song to not talk about it. Weird.”

The track comes with an irreverent and whimsical video, on which Keith offers: “You know what we haven’t explored enough in our many years of video media creation? Fog. We’ve run rampant through city streets ('Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt'), rode horses across Irish bogs ('Chick Lit'), and had our eyes speared by nail guns ('Dumb Luck'). Somehow, though, the cinematographers of those videos never had the wherewithal to exploit the sex appeal of a good fog machine. Sure, yeah, we’ve had loads of haze ('Your Heart Is A Weapon'). Hell yes, we’ve deployed light steam ('Rules Don’t Stop'). But it took our many accrued years of cinematographic education to finally nail the fog layers sensual enough to convey the steamy carnality of this, the most sensually befogged song of We Are Scientists’ career. Please, now: get lost in the murk of 'Please Don’t Say It'.”

Qualifying Miles follows two previous self-produced albums Huffy (2021) and Lobes (2023).

On the new album, Keith says: “We Are Scientists’ writing process these days is to just write incessantly - good songs, terrible songs, sincere songs, goofy songs, whatever. It’s a fun process, but it kind of makes it hard to stop and get to the harder work of recording the actual album. Sometimes, it takes a song like 'Please Don’t Say It' to come along and get you so excited about sharing it with everyone else that you simply have no choice but to call a wrap on the writing process and immediately start making a record. We got so excited by the appearance of 'Please Don’t Say It' that was the last song we wrote for Qualifying Miles; we needed it out in the world.”

Track listing:

1. A Prelude to What
2. Starry-Eyed
3. Dead Letters
4. The Big One
5. Please Don’t Say It
6. The Same Mistake
7. What You Want Is Gone
8. A Lesson I Never Learned
9. I Could Do Much Worse
10. I Already Hate This
11. The Mall in My Dreams
12. Promise Me