Microwave have announced their long awaited fourth full length record titled 'Let's Start Degeneracy' set for release on April 26, 2024 via Pure Noise Records. Let's Start Degeneracy, the long-awaited fourth full-length record from Microwave, is a trip. Its title, taken from a conservative politician's take on drugs in 1970, captures the band's newfound liberated spirit, and its tracks play by no one's rules but their own. At various points the Atlanta trio pull together a multitude of influences ranging from ambient pop and R&B to psychedelia and yes, even Sublime. Lyrically, Let's Start Degeneracy is loaded with revelations, some of which came to vocalist/guitarist Nathan Hardy after experiences with ayahuasca in Peru with drummer Timothy "Tito" Pittard. As the pandemic wound down, the two reconvened with bassist/vocalist Tyler Hill and together, found their way back to being Microwave again. “It’s about letting go of attachments and behaviors that aren’t serving you and trying to shake off your programming and not be motivated by fear and guilt and shame,” says Hardy. “It’s about learning to be happy and take care of yourself.” It's an emo record, but perhaps only categorically speaking. It contains multitudes: ambient, pop, R&B, punk, and experimental sounds float in and out of one another as the record moves through scenes, experiences, and feelings, all of them rippling with a purity of intention and translation that mark the best artistic works of “psychedelia.” Vocalist/guitarist/producer Nathan Hardy, bassist Tyler Hill, and drummer Timothy Pittard have created something that resembles a concept record, but it’s the sort of concept that’s impossible to contain in just one phrase or word or sound. Their latest single, "Bored of Being Sad" finds Hardy musing on being a band in the biz––"I was dead, I was looking for companies to sling shirts at the funeral"––and how the idea of 'sadness' has been romanticized instead of being treated as something to resolve. Musically, it's right up there with one of their most popular tracks, "Lighterless," in its midtempo mastery; Hardy actually wrote this track in the Much Love days, but it didn't feel complete until he revisited it when working on Let's Start Degeneracy. It’s a perfect slice of what people have come to love and expect from the band: anthemic and guitar-forward, a perfect chemical balance between emo and pop-punk.

RIYL: Foxing, The Hotelier, Brand New, Radiohead, Turnstile