Aperture drops on May 9th ahead of a summer and fall trek
The Head and the Heart has confirmed a May 9th release date for their sixth studio album, Aperture, which also marks their debut for Verve Forecast. The new single, “After the Setting Sun,” is out now. The new track follows the release of their own record setting No. 1 AAA single “Arrow” and a new, separate version of the track featuring Mt. Joy that supports victims of the recent LA fires. Aperture brings the band back to a DIY approach as it’s the first record self-produced by the band since their self-titled debut album in 2011.
The band has also announced the Aperture Tour kicking off on May 31st in Detroit. The tour includes stops at Central Park Summerstage in New York City, the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, and more. The tour will include stops at Summerfest and Harvest Jazz & Blues Festival this summer. Every ticket sold will add $1 to donate to the band’s Rivers and Roads Foundation. The foundation, started by The Head and The Heart, raises money for local Seattle-based music programs and initiatives with an emphasis on equitable access to music education, and mental health resources and support for musicians.
For the newly announced Aperture Tour dates, The Head And The Heart’s fan club members will have access to an exclusive artist pre-sale beginning Tuesday, March 4th at 10 am local time ahead of the general public beginning Friday, March 7th at 10 am local time.
During more than 15 years together, The Head and The Heart have journeyed their way through a lot of different terrain – a critically and commercially revered debut album and follow up on stalwart indie Sub Pop, followed by three albums with big hits on major label Warner Records. But after touring in support of 2022’s Every Shade of Blue, they started asking questions. Where have we been and what’s next? Taking their future into their own hands, the band decamped to Richmond, Virginia, and hit the reset button with a grip of ideas in tow. As they did in their early years, band members handled production duties themselves. Staying true to their own creative vision was paramount, and through a year of sessions in their twin home bases of Seattle and Richmond, The Head and The Heart found their way forward by believing in their power as one.
“I believe we’ve made a very great record together and obviously the title is an important aspect of the final product,” says group member Matty Gervais. “For me, Aperture represents the choice we all must make between resigning ourselves to darkness, or letting the light in and recognizing our own agency to do so. It feels relevant to the times, in that we’re literally choosing between authoritarianism vs. democracy. Ignorance vs. enlightenment on a macro scale, and complacency/cynicism vs. hope, empathy and perseverance on the micro scale. To me, it sums up a lot of what each of these songs is grappling with in some form and what we’ve collectively gone through as a band. It’s about choosing hope again and again, no matter how many times it may feel that you have lost it.”
As for the title song, Gervais says it is “an invitation to wake up in the present moment recognizing that it is all we have, in all its contradictions of beauty and pain, joy and despair, unfathomable vastness and impermanence.”
At early sessions for Aperture, the group instantly tapped into a renewed enthusiasm, with a tide of ideas rippling out in a matter of days. There was a rawness and unfettered energy to these songs. A band that had built a massive audience with meticulous arrangements and studio perfection suddenly found a vim that bordered on punk. Pianist Kenny Hensley sang and contributed lyrics for the first time, and drummer Tyler Williams even sang lead for the first time, boosting an explosive tune from vocalist/guitarist Jonathan Russell called “Cop Car.”
Russell previously said the decision for the band to return to self-producing was “a 180 in terms of where we were headed. We really wanted to make our next music our own way, and it was a lot of fun to have all of us in a room together again. When we’d have downtime over the past two years, we’d all fly into either Seattle or Richmond and work in a specific studio in each place. We worked with engineers from our past. All these things went into being able to reimagine how we wanted to approach making music.”
The Head and The Heart 2025 Tour Dates:
May 31 – Detroit @ The Fillmore Detroit
June 1 – Toronto @ History
June 3 – Montreal @ MTELUS
June 5 – Boston @ MGM Music Hall at Fenway
June 6 – Philadelphia @ The Met Philadelphia
June 7 – Silver Spring, MD @ The Fillmore Silver Spring
June 9 – Atlanta @ Coca-Cola Roxy
June 10 – St. Augustine, FL @ The Saint Augustine Amphitheater
June 12 – New Orleans @ The Fillmore New Orleans
June 13 – Dallas @ Gilley’s Dallas – South Side Ballroom
June 14 – New Braunfels, TX @ Whitewater Amphitheater
June 15 – Houston @ Bayou Music Center
June 18 – Kansas City @ Uptown Theater
June 19 – St. Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre
June 20 – Milwaukee @ Summerfest Festival
July 15 – Charlotte, NC @ Skyla Credit Union Amphitheatre
July 16 – Raleigh, NC @ Red Hat Amphitheater
July 18 – Nashville @ Ascend Amphitheater
July 19 – Louisville, KY @ Iroquois Amphitheater
July 20 – Cincinnati, OH @ The ICON Festival Stage at Smale Park
July 22 – Asheville, NC @ Asheville Yards
July 23 – Columbus, OH @ KEMBA Live! Outdoor Amphitheater
July 26 – Northampton, MA @ Pines Theater
July 27 – Bethlehem, PA @ Levitt Pavilion SteelSacks
July 30 – New York City @ SummerStage in Central Park
July 31 – Asbury Park, NJ @ Stone Pony Summerstage
Aug 1 – Richmond, VA @ Allianz Amphitheater at Riverfront
Aug 2 – Harrisburg, PA @ Riverfront Park
Aug 3 – Pittsburgh @ Stage AE
Aug 5 – Cleveland @ Jacobs Pavilion
Aug 6 – Indianapolis @ Everwise Amphitheater
Aug 8 – Chicago @ The Salt Shed – Fairgrounds
Aug 10 – La Vista, NE @ The Astro Outdoor Amphitheater
Aug 13 – Ogden, UT @ Ogden Amphitheater
Aug 14 – Boise, ID @ Outlaw Field at Idaho Botanical Garden
Aug 15 – Troutdale, OR @ Edgfield Amphitheater
Aug 16 – Seattle @ T-Mobile Park
Sept 11 – Frederickton, NB @ Harvest Jazz & Blues Festival
Sept 24 – Berkeley, CA @ The Greek Theatre
Sept 25 – Sacramento, CA @ Channel 24
Sept 26 – Paso Robles, CA @ Vina Robles Amphitheater
Sept 28 – Los Angeles @ The Greek Theater
Sept 29 – San Diego @ Gallagher Square
Sept 30 – Phoenix, AZ @ Arizona Financial Theatre
Oct 2 – Albuquerque, NM @ Revel
Oct 4 – Oklahoma City @ The Criterion
Oct 5 – Fayetteville, AR @ JJ’s Live
Oct 7 – Oxford, MS @ The Lyric Oxford
Oct 10 – Knoxville, TN @ The Tennessee Theatre
