Southern California indie pop quintet THE ARMOIRES celebrate a full decade as a band with a new single, and a brash mission statement of a song: “We Absolutely Mean It”. The followup to the band's late-2023 indie hit “Music & Animals”, it arrives on all digital platforms April 19, ten years to the week since the founding of the band and serving as a theme song for their current incarnation. “We Absolutely Mean It” is the second single previewing The Armoires' forthcoming new album, and it's up for pre-order/pre-save now:

orcd.co/armoires-meanit

A swirling manifesto of a song, “We Absolutely Mean It” lays out the identity and the ambitions of The Armoires in 2024. “This is where we go big,” declare co-vocalists CHRISTINA BULBENKO (keyboards) and REX BROOME (guitars) over a pulsing beat provided by drummer JOHN BORACK and bassist CLIFFORD ULRICH, while the urgent viola lines of LARYSA BULBENKO weave in and out of a sonic tapestry that is, as the lyrics specify, “recommended if you like Sunshine Pop, College Rock and Psych”. It's a theme song for the band in the mold of The Monkees, or Devo's “Jocko Homo”, and like those songs it's meant to bring a smile as well as serving as a statement of identity. “It's tongue-in-cheek, but true to the title, it's also completely sincere,” says Broome. “The way we see it, rock and roll is a fundamentally absurd enterprise, but one that requires complete commitment to the absurdity on every level. So when we sing about ourselves as a singular sound, a collective beyond an individual point of view, and invite everyone listening to join in as part of the experience... yes, we absolutely mean it. That's what the magic of being in a band is to us: something bigger and richer than anyone could achieve on their own.”

“There's more to it in the context of the album, though,” adds Christina. “'We Absolutely Mean It' was always intended as the opening track, but as the other songs developed, there came to be a sense of an underlying mythology or world-building holding it all together. So step one was this little bit of introductory self-mythology, establishing ourselves as a sort of Greek chorus narrating the rest of the story. The record's all about empathy and community, looking beyond one's own concerns and tuning in to the wider world, so it was important that we said of ourselves, hey, we're only able to create this by working together and listening to each other. And you can be part of it too, so come join us for the ride.”

The sound conjured up by the band and album producer MICHAEL SIMMONS (of sparkle*jets u.k. and Popdudes) takes everything for which The Armoires are known – the inviting, ambiguously androgynous harmonies and the intricate tapestry of 12-string, viola and keyboard textures – to a newly urgent level best described by the word the band chants over the song's escalating coda: “sfacciata”. “It's an Italian word that means brash or brazen,” says Bulbenko. “And it was originally the title of the new record, before the songs all started to tell us that it was a journey to a destination we came to call Octoberland. But it still speaks to the sense of purpose we feel in presenting these songs, and it works as a slightly mysterious rallying cry to kick things off.” With the powerful psych pop of “We Absolutely Mean It” following the sweet lilt of the band's delightful and unapologetically twee-leaning single “Music & Animals”, fans can begin to triangulate just where Octoberland lies. The Armoires welcome you to join them there when the full album sees release in (naturally) October 0f 2024. California indie pop quintet THE ARMOIRES celebrate a full decade as a band with a new single, and a brash mission statement of a song: “We Absolutely Mean It”. The followup to the band's late-2023 indie hit “Music & Animals”, it arrives on all digital platforms April 19, ten years to the week since the founding of the band and serving as a theme song for their current incarnation. “We Absolutely Mean It” is the second single previewing The Armoires' forthcoming new album, due this Autumn.

A swirling manifesto of a song, “We Absolutely Mean It” lays out the identity and the ambitions of The Armoires in 2024. “This is where we go big,” declare co-vocalists CHRISTINA BULBENKO (keyboards) and REX BROOME (guitars) over a pulsing beat provided by drummer JOHN BORACK and bassist CLIFFORD ULRICH, while the urgent viola lines of LARYSA BULBENKO weave in and out of a sonic tapestry that is, as the lyrics specify, “recommended if you like Sunshine Pop, College Rock and Psych”. It's a theme song for the band in the mold of The Monkees, or Devo's “Jocko Homo”, and like those songs it's meant to bring a smile as well as serving as a statement of identity. “It's tongue-in-cheek, but true to the title, it's also completely sincere,” says Broome. “The way we see it, rock and roll is a fundamentally absurd enterprise, but one that requires complete commitment to the absurdity on every level. So when we sing about ourselves as a singular sound, a collective beyond an individual point of view, and invite everyone listening to join in as part of the experience... yes, we absolutely mean it. That's what the magic of being in a band is to us: something bigger and richer than anyone could achieve on their own.”

“There's more to it in the context of the album, though,” adds Christina. “'We Absolutely Mean It' was always intended as the opening track, but as the other songs developed, there came to be a sense of an underlying mythology or world-building holding it all together. So step one was this little bit of introductory self-mythology, establishing ourselves as a sort of Greek chorus narrating the rest of the story. The record's all about empathy and community, looking beyond one's own concerns and tuning in to the wider world, so it was important that we said of ourselves, hey, we're only able to create this by working together and listening to each other. And you can be part of it too, so come join us for the ride.”

The sound conjured up by the band and album producer MICHAEL SIMMONS (of sparkle*jets u.k. and Popdudes) takes everything for which The Armoires are known – the inviting, ambiguously androgynous harmonies and the intricate tapestry of 12-string, viola and keyboard textures – to a newly urgent level best described by the word the band chants over the song's escalating coda: “sfacciata”. “It's an Italian word that means brash or brazen,” says Bulbenko. “And it was originally the title of the new record, before the songs all started to tell us that it was a journey to a destination we came to call Octoberland. But it still speaks to the sense of purpose we feel in presenting these songs, and it works as a slightly mysterious rallying cry to kick things off.” With the powerful psych pop of “We Absolutely Mean It” following the sweet lilt of the band's delightful and unapologetically twee-leaning single “Music & Animals”, fans can begin to triangulate just where Octoberland lies. The Armoires welcome you to join them there when the full album sees release in (naturally) October 0f 2024.