Eric Bachmann‘s been busy lately with the Archers of Loaf reunion, but he’s reactivated Crooked Fingers for their first album in 15 years. It’s titled Swet Deth and will be out February 27 via Merge. The album features contributions from The National‘s Matt Berninger, Sharon Van Etten, and Superchunk frontman and Merge label boss Mac McCaughan, along with regular collaborators Jeremy Wheatley and Jon Rauhouse.
The album title came via drawings made by Bachmann’s son. “There were crows and sinister figures with scythes and tombstones,” Eric says, “and in the center, there was a strange, lush green tree growing out of all of this red and black. On one of them, he had written ‘DETH, SWET DETH,’ and everything clicked in my head.” That art, of course, was used as the album cover. Check that out below.
“What I was writing wasn’t mellow like a solo album,” Bachmann says of the decision to bring back Crooked Fingers. “It was heavy, and it made me wish that I had a band. So, I hired Jeremy Wheatley to play drums, and I didn’t tell him what to play. In that moment, it became more of a collaboration, more of a band, and it felt natural to call that band Crooked Fingers.”
The first single from the album is “Cold Waves,” a roaring Americana rocker which features McCaughan. Eric says of the song’s inspiration: “I dreamed of a beautiful, colossal, six-winged inamorata rising off the horizon above the ashes of the dying earth; arctic lasers pulsating from her eyes and fire streaming from her fingertips, freezing then melting then freezing everything again in an instant; lighting up the night with death and apocalypse, destroying everything in her path. When I woke I realized I had fallen deeply in love with her, but was worried that it was actually a trap, which—in hindsight—it clearly was.”
Watch the video for “Cold Wave” below.
Crooked Fingers will tour in 2026 for the album, details TBA. Stay tuned.
Swet Deth
1. Cold Waves
2. From All Ways
3. Spray Tan Speed Queen (In a German Car)
4. Insomnia
5. Empty Love and Cheap Thrills
6.Haunted
7. Hospital
8. (I’m Your) Bodhisattva
9. Lena
10. Steady Now