Tears for Fears announce first new album in 17 Years

Tears for Fears, the duo of Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, are back. Today, they announced their first album in 17 years. The Tipping Point is out February 25 via Concord. Check out the video for the title track, directed by Matt Mahurin, below.

The album had originally been set for a 2017 release; the duo discussed the delay in a statement with the album announcement. “Before everything went so right with this album, everything first had to go wrong. It took years, but something happens when we put our heads together,” Orzabal said.

Tears for Fears worked with “some of today’s hit songwriters,” but ultimately disagreed with their former management about that direction. “Eventually, that pressure and tension divided us not just from our management, but from one another too,” Orzabal said, noting that they returned to work on the album as a duo with the support of new management. “Suddenly, for the first time in a long time, we felt like we had someone in our corner who understood what we were trying to do. We felt like we had somebody on our side. It was the first time in a long time that we decided—we have to do this.”

The album was created with Tears for Fears’ longtime collaborator Charlton Pettus, plus producers and songwriters Sacha Skarbek and Florian Reutter. Their last album was 2004’s Everybody Loves a Happy Ending. Last year, the group shared a new song called “I Love You But I’m Lost,” which appeared on their greatest hits compilation Rule the World. They were also on a co-headlining tour with Hall and Oates, but had to momentarily postpone due to a family emergency.

Read Pitchfork’s Sunday Review of Tears for Fears’ 1985 album Songs From the Big Chair.

The Tipping Point:

1. No Small Thing
2. The Tipping Point
3. Long, Long, Long Time
4. Break the Man
5. My Demons
6. Rivers of Mercy
7. Please Be Happy
8. Master Plan
9. End of Night
10. Stay
11. Let It All Evolve [deluxe edition]
12. Secret Location [deluxe edition]
13. Shame (Cry Heaven) [deluxe edition]

Source: pitchfork.com