Gotee Records/Capitol will release "Five Score And Seven Years Ago", Relient K's fifth album in 7 years and the follow up to 2004's "mmhmm," on March 7.
The album is a departure of sorts for the pop-punk band. For starters, there are some love songs – happy ones. “I always write about what I’m going through and I can’t avoid the fact that I’m just really happy and there are some good things going on,” says lead singer/guitarist/pianist Matt Thiessen. This happy state of mind lights up the exuberant first single “Must Have Done Something Right.” "This song represents something that I've wanted to create for a long time,” he explains. “It’s not a political commentary or a tear jerking emotion-piece, it’s just a feel good, fun song. Written at 3 a.m. with a smirk on my face, the song turned out to be something that you can tap your foot and smile to.”
Although “Five Score And Seven Years Ago”’s 14 songs are written in the first person, Thiessen has ventured beyond the confessional this time around. “Plead the Fifth” and “Deathbed,” the two songs that bookend the album, step into the shoes of a 19th century man with an intriguing conspiracy theory about Abraham Lincoln and an aging cancer patient respectively. But while “Five Score And Seven Years Ago” isn’t packed with the band’s characteristic puns, Relient K has clearly not lost its quirky sense of humor. In “Faking My Own Suicide,” the narrator takes a cue from the classic cult comedy Harold and Maude, hatching a faux suicide plot to get the object of his affection to realize that she really does love him. “Crayons Can Melt On Us For All I Care,” which takes longer to say than to play, is a classic Relient K goofball aside. And while the 11-minute, 115-track “Deathbed,” which features Switchfoot’s Jon Foreman as a guest vocalist, has a somber setting as its title implies, the masterfully woven tale of a man’s life and last moments brims with keen observations and aural ironies. “Five ScoreAnd Seven Years Ago” marks Relient K’s first full-length album featuring bassist John Warne and Jon Schneck, who plays guitar, banjo, and bells – although the two appeared on the band’s “Apathetic EP,” released in late 2005.
With lead guitarist Matt Hoopes and drummer Dave Douglas completing the lineup, Relient K is now a quintet with each of the members contributing vocals. But the biggest change was in the control booth, working with producer Howard Benson. “I was honestly pretty nervous,” confesses lead guitarist Matt Hoopes, “We’d never really worked with any other producer beside Mark Townsend – he did everything from our first demo, all the way up to the last album. But it was a good experience working with Howard.”
