Brooklyn punks MakeWar are releasing their fourth album A Paradoxical Theory of Change this Friday (6/28) via Fat Wreck Chords, but you can hear it before it’s officially out, as a full stream premieres in this post. Band leader Jose Prieto wrote the album after beginning therapy, which led to the album’s mental health-related themes, and he initially wrote most of it at home on an acoustic guitar during pandemic lockdown, which helped make it some of MakeWar’s most personal, introspective music yet. Once the rest of the band got involved though, they turned it into something you can rock out to, ragged punk anthems in the vein of bands like Hot Water Music and The Lawrence Arms.
Having written music in their younger years about “drinking your problems away,” Jose says A Paradoxical Theory Of Change “talks about how if you really want or need change in your life, instead of fighting or pushing against whatever it is that you’re feeling, you should absorb it, accept it and let it be. It’s there for a reason, and once you acknowledge that you’re living with this problem, you can actually mold it. You have to let it be and not fuck with it so you can finally find change.”
“It’s still a war and a fight,” he adds, referring to the band name itself representing Jose’s urge to write music that fought away his depression and anxiety, “but I’m being more intelligent in terms of how to do it. I’m still struggling, as you can hear on the record, but I’ve found the key to battling it.”
In an email to BV, he adds:
This is our fourth full-length album as MakeWar, and as cliché as it sounds, to me, it’s the best record we’ve ever written. It’s incredibly raw and personal, so much so that I got nervous hearing it for the first time, realizing how much of myself I’m sharing. But that’s why I do this. I hope people feel heard and seen while listening to this record, just as some of my favorite albums did for me. Talking about mental health, especially doing it so publicly, is tough, but by doing so, we can find more answers, build a bigger community, and learn to understand and love that part of ourselves. It took us a while to get this new record out, but if you don’t count the two years lost during the pandemic, it’s only been two years haha. Anyway, we love this record, and I hope you love it too. It was hard to write, it was hard to record, and I hope it hits as hard as it should. “Sing it with me, sing it loud until your lungs are empty.” Love y’all.
Listen to the whole album below and find the band’s list of upcoming tour dates here.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_uD5vh8_aM542qE8YzlHKu1Cg-Ub6A_F