There’s a countdown on their official website to 2 days from now - looks like we’ll probably get a single then.
Idk why I thought this but I was under the impression they were going on a long hiatus after A Head Full of Dreams. Pretty excited to be getting a double album now though!
I definitely remember them strongly hinting that A Head Full of Dreams was going to be their last album.
I am very excited about this album. I think they are absolutely a band that can pull off a double album. They usually write and record a ton of songs during the making of each album and usually end up having awesome b-sides and EPs. 16 songs doesn't seem like a stretch for them in my eyes. They are coming off of what I think is their worst album by a big margin though, so we'll see...
“Arabesque” sounds pretty different for them... but honestly I dig it? I definitely prefer it to their other recent attempts at experimentation.
“Orphans” is pleasant... definitely more towards their pop side but the more organic production makes it pretty enjoyable for me. This is clearly more of the single... but “Arabesque” is really promising for me.
I have no way to listen to FLAC, so I had to convert both files and only just now got to listen. I like both songs. As beachdude said, "Orphans" is definitely more towards their pop side, but the production sounds glorious. None of the problems that plagued many of the songs on AHFoD. I think "Arabesque" is probably the stronger song though. Really fun, cool sounding song. Exactly the type of experimentation I love to hear from them. You can hear each member of the band really bringing something to these songs. Great instrumentation. These two songs have me even more excited to hear the entire double-album now.