Kiwi Jr. announce new album and share video for title track
Album release: 22nd January 2021
Label: Sub Pop
More info: Kiwi Jr. website
Toronto’s Kiwi Jr. will release Cooler Returns, the group’s new album and the follow up to their acclaimed debut Football Money, on CD/LP/CD/DSPs January 22nd, 2021 worldwide through Sub Pop, with the exception of Canada through the band’s Kiwi Club imprint.
Today the band is sharing the official video for “Cooler Returns,” the album's title track and new single, which was directed by Sean Egerton Foreman (who directed Kiwi Jr’s “Gimme More” in January 2020). Singer Jeremy Gaudet comments on the video: “No one is able to play live shows, so using the latest technology we have replicated the most accurate version possible of what Kiwi Jr. shows once looked like."
Buildings burning in every direction; macabre unknowns in your friendly neighbor’s basement; undecided voters sharpening their pencils: under pressure we could call Kiwi Jr.’s Cooler Returns “timely.” But what year is it, again? On their sophomoric smash-up released world-wide by Sub Pop Records, Kiwi Jr. cycle through the recent zigs & looming zags of the new decade, squinting anew at New Year’s parties forgotten and under-investigated small town diner fires, piecing together low-stakes conspiracy theories on what’s coming down the pike in 2021. Put together like a thousand-piece puzzle, assembled in flow state through the first dull stretch of quarantine, sanitized singer shuffling to sanitized studio by streetcar, masked like it's the kind of work where getting recognized means getting killed, Cooler Returns materializes as a sprawling survey from the first few bites of the terrible twenties, an investigative exposé of recent history buried under the headlines and ancient kings buried under parking lots.
Not so long since their debut Football Money in archaeological time, unending gray eons later in the dog years of quaran-time, spiritually antipodean Canadians Kiwi Jr. return to disseminate this year's annual report to the shareholders, burying the incriminating numbers in the endless appendices of a longform narrative record, a 3,000 word tract for stakeholders to pore over.
Cooler Returns - memories of Augusts past, unrepressed & transcribed fast - go down easier thanks to meaningful changes enacted in 2019’s KiwiCares Pledge: delivering on a promise to transition from Crunchy to Smooth by 2021, the caveman chug of Football Money has been steamed & pressed with the purifying air of a saloon piano - operated with bow-tie untied - and a spring green side-salad of tentatively up-tempo organ taps & freshly fluted harmonica.
A chronically detuned spin of the dial through swivel-chair distractions & WFH daydreams, an immersive ctrl-tab deluge cycling through popular listicle distractions like the unentombing of Richard III, or the deja vu destruction of the Glasgow School of Art, Kiwi Jr. sing this song to an indoor audience, crisscrossing canceled, every other prestige distraction source wrung dry, only songwriting remaining to deliver engrossing tales to the populace, just how I imagine it worked in the old days. Fixing loose ingredients into a sturdy whip, Kiwi Jr. beam in live from the 9-5, striding into 2021 with a mastered brainwave that comes equally from the back room of the record store as the penalty box. And how do we, left holding this box of deliberate entanglements, sign off to those as yet uninitiated, undecided, uncertain, unseen, absent return coordinates - Best Wishes, Warm Regards, Good Luck? Cooler Returns, Cooler Returns, C o o l e r R e t u r n s !
Hear "Cooler Returns" on DSPs here and watch the video below.
Cooler Returns is now available for preorder through Sub Pop. LP preorders from megamart.subpop.com and select independent retailers in the US will receive the limited Loser edition on translucent gold colored vinyl (while supplies last). Preorders through select independent retailers in the UK and Europe will receive the Loser on white colored vinyl (while supplies last).
There is an additional limited edition version of Cooler Returns from participating Dinked retailers in the UK that will be available on yellow colored vinyl with a signed print and a sequentially numbered obi strip (while supplies last).
What people have said about Kiwi Jr.’s Football Money:
"Each [song] is filled to the rafters with deliriously catchy riffs. [It's] one of those rare albums that gets better the more you play it as all those wonderful throw-away lines get lodged in your head until the next one knocks it out.... There is something about Kiwi Jr. that is hard to ignore. They sound like a mixture of all the best bits of R.E.M., The Kinks, The Strokes, The Modern Lovers, Pavement and Lou Reed..." [8/10] - CLASH
"While stuffing itself with enough insight to force its listeners to acknowledge issues, there's enough charm and wit to remind us the importance of having a little fun along the way." - DIY
"Delightfully sharp indie-pop." - The i Paper
"An instantly accessible set of addictive tunes.” - Louder Than War
“With a vim and focus that recalls early Strokes… tautly tuneful jangle channels the Modern Lovers, the Cars and Pavement with hooks that dig in deep and stay there.” ★★★★- MOJO
"Stacks of melodic joy" - Music OMH
"There's no sense in resisting the playful jangle of Kiwi Jr." - NPR Music
"With easy hooks, surprise structural twists, and a gift for non-sequiturs, the Canadian quartet’s debut is a vivid portrait of the big-city struggle...Gaudet has such a witty way with one-liners, and the band is so effervescent in their execution, that it’s easy to overlook the elevated level of craft at work." - Pitchfork
“With impressionistic lyrics, breathless Jonathan Richman meets Richard Hell vocals, and more than a passing nod to early REM, Kiwi Jr re-imagine punk and folk-rock as part of the same glorious lineage.” ★★★★ - Shindig!
"Packs a melodic punch — one that, echoing its most infectious track, will you leave you chanting 'gimme more gimme more more more'." - UNCUT
"Truly infectious” - The Wire
Kiwi Jr.: Cooler Returns album artwork | Download image here
Kiwi Jr. - Cooler Returns - Tracklisting
1. Tyler
2. Undecided Voters
3. Maid Marian’s Toast
4. Highlights of 100
5. Only Here for a Haircut
6. Cooler Returns
7. Guilty Party
8. Omaha
9. Domino
10. Nashville Wedding
11. Dodger
12. Norma Jean’s Jacket
13. Waiting in Line
Find Kiwi Jr. online: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram