Frog Eyes Violent Psalms

Frog Eyes have made their last album. 17 years after their teetering debut, the Vancouver band unveils Violet Psalms - a giddy lament; a gnashing jubilee; a rain-drenched allocution on hope vs. horror, paradise vs. pride, Marx and Brexit and bad acid trips.

It's an ending like a beginning. "We were trying to pretend it was our first record," Carey Mercer says. This is their final record, Frog Eyes' last gasp - but the art-rockers wanted to capture the energy of a debut, the freedom you feel "when there's no expectation that anyone will actually listen." They made it at home, burrowing under the house where Mercer lives with drummer Melanie Campbell. The goal was to blot out the world, focusing on what they could grow down there, four musicians in a basement. Could they squeeze out ten songs? Was there enough paste in the tube to squeeze out ten? "In the end there was. Which is rad."

1. A Strand of Blue Stars
2. Little Mothers
3. Idea Man
4. On a Finely Sewn Sleeve
5. Don't Sleep Under Stars
6. Sleek as the Day is Done
7. Your Boss's Shirt
8. Itch of Summer Knees
9. Unconscious Missive
10. Pay for Fire