Gang of Youths are back. This is not a drill.
The chart-topping, multiple ARIA Award winners have emerged from hibernation with “Things Take Time” (via Mosy Recordings / Sony Music Australia / RCA U.K. and Arista U.S.), the alternative rock act’s first new music in four years.
Written by bandmates David Le’aupepe, Tom Hobden, Donnie Borzestowski and Jung Kim, “Things Take Time,” with its orchestral flourishes, is a mature, more mellow version of a band that cut its teeth in Sydney’s pub scene, and, by 2017 , had moved into position as one of Australia’s preeminent rock bands. Explore Gang of Youths See latest videos, charts and news
“Things Take Time” is a meditation on patience, and the swings and roundabouts that are the playground of life. Of growth, decay, and regrowth. “It’s in it’s namesake, but it took a f—ing long time to make a three-minute song,” Kim tells Billboard with a laugh. “It took three years to make a three-minute song.” Then, “lightning struck” and the thunder followed as Le’aupepe reached into his bag of tricks, chords came, and the song flowed. Related Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Bushes Make a Cameo in NFL's New 'Celly' Dance Promo: Watch It Now Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hillary Clinton and Paul Rudd Teaming Up For Karaoke Fundraiser in Defense of Democracy NCT 127 Bringing 'NCT 127 5th TOUR 'NEO CITY : SEOUL - THE REDLINE' in CINEMAS' to Screens Around the World
GoY’s third and most recent studio album, 2022’s Angel in Realtime , gave the band a second consecutive leader on the ARIA Albums Chart. The collection, which went on to win triple j’s coveted J Award for Australian album of the year, was loaded with textures and ideas on “Indigenous heritage and identity, family, god, life, death, grief, sport, forgiveness, and the Angel Islington,” Le’aupepe said at the time.
This next project is coming from a different place. “The lyrical content is quite a departure,” says Hobden. “Records of old have obviously been centered around some very, very personal topics for him. And then suddenly he’s facing an album where he doesn’t really know what the lyrical thread is. It’s a whole different approach to songwriting.”
As music took shape for this new era, Le’aupepe spent time in Hobden’s London garden studio, observing the good life flourish outside with the warmer seasons. “He was in there for many hours, many weeks, just chiseling away ideas,” Hobden explains.
Like Angel in Realtime , the next phase of GoY draws its DNA from multiple places and creative hearts. GoY produced the new single, recorded at Decoy Studios in Suffolk, east England, and engineered by Robert Sellens and Jung Kim (who also contributes guitar and keyboards).
“There’s always been an ambition to make something quite grandiose, with very grandiose ideas,” Kim explains, “and it’s reflected in very long arrangements and quite dense instrumentation. But this time around, it’s very much stripping a lot of that away for the sake of just making music that actually makes this maybe feel at ease. And at comfort.”
Those muscular recordings are “not about impressing,” Hobden assures. “It’s not about trying to be, in any way, part of the zeitg…