Hear Grandaddy's Powerful New Synth Jam 'Evermore'

Courtesy of the artist

By now you should be pretty excited about the upcoming Grandaddy album, the group's first in more than a decade. Back in October, when the band announced it'd be releasing the long-awaited full-length Last Place, it shared the track "Way We Won't," a song so true to Grandaddy's sound it could have easily come from any of the group's earliest albums. Now the band is revealing another track, the feverishly pulsing, synth-heavy pop gem "Evermore."

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Like many of the band's classic story songs, "Evermore" paints a fractured, dystopian landscape pocked with sadness and broken hearts. "You grieve like a freeway tree," sings frontman Jason Lytle. "Old and grey, no love in your leaves."

In an email to NPR Music, Lytle explains that the whole track was built on the rhythmic, looping synth line that runs through most of the song. "From an early age, way before I ever dreamt of writing a song, I became fascinated by the idea of making a tune that revolves around a constant sound," he says. "My first memory of this was being a kid and trying to watch cartoons or Sesame Street or whatever while my mom was vacuuming in the room. Ever the restless multi-tasker, I would hum songs and come up with melodies that revolved around the sound of the vacuum while impatiently waiting for her to finish her noisy chore. I continued doing this with other appliances, motors, or things that made noise throughout the years. Eventually it found its way into my own compositions. The repeating synth sequence here was a good excuse to try and build a song around repetition."

Lytle says the synth line itself sat around unused for years — until he decided to start working on a new Grandaddy album and make something meaningful out of a relentless, mechanical sequence. "I have no idea what the song is about," Lytle says. "But I really like the imagery of sad dirty trees that live by the freeway and throwing stuff out of commercial airliners. Also the line 'When remembering is what forgetting's for.' It's kinda high-school-corny poetry, but I still like it a lot."

Last Place is due out March 3 on Danger Mouse's 30th Century Records.