Against Me! to Release ‘Shape Shift With Me’ Album, Share New Track ‘333’
Against Me! have announced the band’s next album, Shape Shift With Me, will be coming Sept. 16! The Floridian punk rockers have also unleashed the album’s lead single, “333.”
Shape Shift With Me will be Against Me!’s seventh full-length album and the second since frontwoman Laura Jane Grace began her transition into womanhood. Grace is toting this album as her first shooting straight from the hip with no metaphorical cloaks cast over the meaning of her lyrics.
“Tons of people have written about love. But while love is cliché, it’s infinitely relevant,” Grace says. “For me, having always been in a punk band that was expected to be political, I never felt like I had that option to write about feelings in that way. That’s what I ended up being drawn to this time. It’s writing in a way I thought I could never write before, and not giving a s--t about expectations.”
She continues, “Is there a record that is about relationships from a trans perspective?”. “There needs to be more records about trans rights and everything like that, but feeling like I already did that, I wanted to move on to write commentary on living from a trans perspective. I wanted to write the transgender response to the Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main St., Liz Phair’s Exile In Guyville and the Streets’ A Grand Don’t Come For Free. All those records are relationship records. There’s been an infinite amount of records talking about what love means from a cisgender perspective. I wanted to present the trans perspective on sex, love and heartbreak.”
Songwriting was usually a solitary procedure for Grace, but she explored new ground by writing two of the new record’s tracks - “Boyfriend” and “Norse Truth” - with Cody Votolato from The Blood Brothers. “It was just about opening up to whatever comes my way karmically,” Grace says. “Whatever everyone in the band is willing to offer, I just wanted to be open to it. I didn’t want it to be like what it was in the past where it may have felt closed. I want it to be different.”
Against Me! will be touring with Bad Religion and Dave Hause later this year. Also, Against Me! drummer Atom Willard will be making nightly appearances as a part of the 8G Band on Late Night With Seth Meyers. Willard will be on the show from July 18-21.
Against Me!, "333"
Against Me!, Shape Shift With Me Track Listing:
1. "ProVision L-3"
2. "12:03"
3. "Boyfriend"
4. "Crash"
5. "Delicate, Petite & Other Things I’ll Never Be"
6. "333"
7. "Haunting, Haunted, Haunts"
8. "Dead Rats"
9. "Rebecca"
10. "Norse Truth"
11. "Suicide Bomber"
12. "All This (And More)"