We've been seriously celebrating this album since the promo reached us some weeks ago... so let's see what our man RNK has to say about it:

Bavarian electro-indie heavyweights The Notwist have, at least since the beginning of the new millennium, skipped an album every couple years, if you will: It’s been six years between “Neon Golden” and their previous full-length “The Devil, You + Me”, and now it’s been another six for “Close to the Glass” to arrive. Sounds crazy? Uninspired? Like a side project? Not at all: Their latest album bursts at the seams with trademark styles tweaked in a new way, as well as new styles incorporated into their trademark sound. After all, this is a band that has come a long way in the last 25 years: hardcore, hip-hop, jazz, indie, they’ve done it all, and they do it all, like a Notwist-sounding Animal Collective, if you will (that’s also what the title track suggested way before the album dropped). “Konk”, for example, is forward-moving indie fun, somewhat like 1994 in better sound quality, I guess you could even watch Dinosaur Jr.’s “Feel The Pain” video while listening to it and “feel” that combination; elsewhere, “Into Another Tune” is so woozily pounding (albeit beat-free), we’ve probably killed our neighbors playing it on repeat, and the 9-minute “Lineri” is just long enough to cut your skull right open without (again) making you feel any kind of pain. Ranging from epically sad (“Steppin’ In”) to indie pop gone fakie (“From One Wrong Place To The Next”), let’s raise our glasses to the real Chabos from Bavaria: Here’s to 2020!

“Close To The Glass“ is out on 24th February via City Slang in Europe, and on 25th February via Sub Pop in North America. Listen to the title track below.