Ahead of a rare-of-late hometown gig this weekend, Poliça has released a new single this week along with details of its upcoming album — with a hint it could be the group’s last.
The Minneapolis-based synth-rock unit — which spent much of the 2010s touring with the likes of Bon Iver and New Order and playing festivals like Coachella and Glastonbury — offered up the dramatic, new acoustic ballad “She Knows Me” on Tuesday as the second track available from its sixth record. The album, titled “Dreams Go,” is due out Oct. 17 and will be promoted locally that month with an in-store performance at the Electric Fetus and a release party concert at Icehouse.
“Dreams Go” follows a strenuous couple years for the band, which went on hiatus when its co-founding bassist/co-vocalist Chris Bierden underwent surgeries for glioblastoma (a type of brain tumor). Bierden has been sidelined from the stage ever since. Singer Leaneagh, drummers Drew Christopherson and Ben Ivascu and producer Ryan Olson enlisted electronics wiz Alex Nutter to help keep the band going.
In Tuesday’s announcement for the now-widely streaming song “She Knows Me,” the band surprised fans by noting that “Dreams Go” likely will be their final album. For now, the members aren’t saying more.
“A long time ago, a music journalist in Minneapolis predicted we’d eventually add guitar to our music,” Leaneagh wrote on their social media pages. “So… here it is. ‘She Knows Me’ from ‘Dreams Go,’ probably our last record, and it includes nylon strings, strummed by me.”
Defying a bad bet their friendly neighborhood newspaper music critic made back in 2012 — predicting they would eventually add a six-string player to their unique sonic mix — Poliça has rather famously gone guitar-less on all its albums up until now, doubling down on its vibrant dueling drums, whirring electronic layers and Leaneagh’s effects-glazed vocals. The title track off “Dreams Go,” which was issued in July, was a better example of that trademark sound. It will be interesting to see how much the rest of the new album sticks to or strays from the Poliça mold.
Preorders of “Dreams Go” are available via thisispolica.com or through the Electric Fetus, where purchases of the album will get you into the band’s in-store set on Oct. 16. Tickets also are available for their release party at Icehouse on Oct. 25 (8 p.m., $25).
The group has only one other gig on the calendar for now, and that’s a headlining slot at the Augtoberfest Block Party put on by Tilia restaurant in Minnesapolis’ Linden Hills neighborhood on Sunday, also featuring Megasound and the Dylan tribute band Mind Out of Time (3-8 p.m., $20). Also, Leaneagh will be one of the guest vocalists filling in for stroke-sidelined songwriter Matt Arthur at Thursday night’s Sound for Silents screening outside Walker Art Center (8:30 p.m., free).
