{"id":3676,"date":"2019-01-30T05:00:08","date_gmt":"2019-01-30T05:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=3676"},"modified":"2019-01-29T14:43:51","modified_gmt":"2019-01-29T14:43:51","slug":"toronto-punks-pkew-pkew-pkew-anounce-tour-dates-and-album-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=3676","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Punks Pkew Pkew Pkew anounce tour dates and album news"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>PKEW PKEW PKEW Announce New Album ‘OPTIMAL LIFESTYLES’<\/em>\u00a0 which will be\u00a0<\/strong>Released 1st March 2019 via Big Scary Monsters (UK) and Dine Alone Records (US\/Canada) also a run of tour dates with hotly tipped LA Punks\u00a0 Spanish Love Songs have been released. Final news is to let fans know what to expect the band have been streaming lead single ‘I Don’t Matter At All’ (streamed below)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\u2018I Don\u2019t Matter At All\u2019. Much like the album itself, is a giant leap forward for Warne\u2019s songwriting, pulling inspiration from The Hold Steady, of course, but leaning deeper into the retro-rock feel of bands like The Strokes and Japandroids, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs this good or is this bad?\u201d ponders Warne of the lifestyle Pkew sings about. \u201cIt\u2019s fun to live like an idiot, but it\u2019s probably bad, also. We\u2019re all constantly wondering if we\u2019ve ruined our lives forever or not, being in a band.\u201d<\/p>\n

Song-by-song, Optimal Lifestyles lays out a journal of the sort of living Warne speaks of, but this isn\u2019t a jokey, bro-ish shrug-off of his circumstances, and neither is Pkew\u2019s purely self-indulgent self-destruction. It\u2019s an acceptance of the circular futility of life in Toronto, increasingly marked by hellishly-accelerated rent increases and unfeeling gentrification.<\/p>\n

More than anything, this record is about trying to cope with a city, an industry, and a world that increasingly doesn\u2019t seem to give a shit about people\u2014only money. So Pkew Pkew Pkew cope by calling out the bullshit.<\/p>\n

Pkew Pkew Pkew\u2019s central thesis is that things might get fucked up from time to time, but there\u2019s still value in trying. Warne testifies that though it\u2019s a Sisyphean, almost masochistic, struggle to be in a band in 2018, it\u2019s better than the alternative, like joining the vulgar charade that is the fraudulently-earnest, vapid hugging-crowd at beige adult parties, where no one is really happy, but everyone pretends to be.<\/p>\n

Warne and the rest of Pkew are honest about where they\u2019re at in life, and over time, one comes to realize that their sardonic wit cloaks a quiet optimism.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always something better, and it makes sense to try for it,\u201d Warne says. \u201cThat\u2019s the shitty and good part: you still do it, cause otherwise, you\u2019ve given up.\u201d<\/p>\n

May 2019 UK Tour Dates w\/ Spanish Love Songs:<\/strong><\/p>\n

07.05.19 – Brighton – The Hope & Ruin
\n08.05.19 – Manchester – Soup Kitchen
\n09.05.19 – Birmingham – The Flapper
\n10.05.19 – Bristol – The Exchange
\n11.05.19 – London – New Cross Inn<\/p>\n