Keith Murray and Chris Cain have always been the odd kids at the indie rock lunch table: too clever for the jocks, too catchy for the cynics, too honest to fake cool. Now, 20 years since With Love and Squalor jolted us awake with jittery charm, they’re back with their ninth album, Qualifying Miles, out July 18 via Grönland Records. And guess what? They're not chasing youth — they're digging through its ruins.
The new single “I Could Do Much Worse” doesn’t shout like their old stuff. It sits and sighs and aches in the corners. It’s the kind of slow, sad tune you throw on when the world feels two sizes too big. Compared to the bright stomp of “Please Don’t Say It,” this one’s a funeral for something you can’t quite name — and that’s the point. These are songs for when you're not even sure what you're mourning anymore.
Murray says they didn’t mean for the album to have a theme. But like old letters falling out of a shoebox, the songs started lining up: regret, memory, the deep weirdness of growing older without really changing. It’s all wrapped in fuzzy guitars that nod to the ‘90s without trying to cosplay it.
Tour plans are big: Europe, the UK, North America. But the real journey here is inward. This is the sound of a band realizing that the miles behind them matter just as much as what’s left.
They could’ve coasted. They didn’t. Instead, they made a record that looks you dead in the eye and says, “Yeah, we’ve been through some things. And we’re still standing.”
So cue up “I Could Do Much Worse,” below and let it hit. It’s not trying to change your life. It’s trying to remind you that you had one, and that it still hurts. In the best way.