After pushing his art rock tendencies to their maximum with 2022’s dark and brooding Pink Floyd-esque concept album Botify the People – hailed by desibeli.net's Mika Roth as ”rewriting their own rock music rule book” and according to Present Perfect ”a worthy addition to the annals of concept album history”, singer-songwriter Jon Fisherman administers the absolute antidote with joyous and break-neck-speed single Soar from The Fisherman & The Sea’s upcoming album Be More Boldly You. Finally backed by his live band in the studio as well, Fisherman sings of a recurring dream of flying that he’s been having since childhood. Soar sounds like a tug-of-war between The Killers and first album era James Bay trying to settle who gets to place their track on the mixtape first.

”I love songs that might sound like a straight-forward pop tune at first but when you start to break it down, it has all these intricacies and anomalies all but forbidden in today’s pop music. Soar is a song like that. When I first brought it to the band, our drummer and keyboardist couldn’t figure out what the structure of the bridge was. And these guys are quasi jazz musicians – a million times smarter about music than me! And then there’s a guitar solo – played over a new chord progression that doesn’t repeat anywhere else in the song – I mean, the audacity, right? Still, when you do it right, you almost don’t notice these things happening as a listener. And it’s not like we’re reinventing the wheel here either; the Beatles and Beach Boys were the first to apply this sort of subtle art rock approach to their songs. Somewhere down the years it just got dumbed down. I blame the 80’s!” Fisherman laughs.

The Fisherman & The Sea have been working on their new album Be More Boldly You for over three years, significantly slowed down by all things COVID, but are looking to finally release the 13 tracks in the second half of 2023. Recorded by Mauri Syrjälä at Suomenlinna Studios located in a maritime fortress on an island outside their native Helsinki, mixed by Jon Fisherman and mastered by twice Grammy nominated Svante Forsbäck, the album will showcase both a bright and anthemic musical side of the band, interspersed with some of the most socially critical lyrics as well as the self-professed ”saddest song I’ve ever written” by Jon Fisherman.

”The art rock vibe is still very much alive, probably most notably on a track called Waiting for the Good Guys to Win Again, but for the most part it’s more subtle, like making the wrong chord sound right, making elaborate compositional structures sound dead simple or doing what I always do; juxtaposing lyrics with an opposing musical vibe” Fisherman describes.

The duotone video to Soar further underlines Fisherman’s love of art rock, depicting an alternative first person narrative of the dream described in the lyrics.

Be More Boldly You is set for release later this year with a release date to be confirmed later.