Big Ups are very pleased to debut the video for National Parks, the second single from their forthcoming album ‘Before A Million Universes,’ on NPR today. Watch the video here. The New York four-piece, comprised of Joe Galarraga (Vocals), Amar Lal (Guitar), Carlos Salguero Jr. (Bass), and Brendan Finn (Drums), will release ‘Before a Million Universes,’ their second full-length, on March 4th in the US via Exploding In Sound Records, and Tough Love in the UK.
Following the record’s first teaser “Capitalized” (which appeared online before Christmas alongside plans for a spring UK/EU tour), National Parks eschews the political for the deeply personal. As the album’s emotional and musical core, National Parks is a song that Galarraga wrote as a tribute to the sacrifices his mother made to raise him.
We’re led through the anger and bewilderment at his mom’s solitary walks through their neighborhood and the selfishness inherent to childhood and into a coda where you can almost see the sun streaming through the trees of Galarraga’s park, drums steady and swelling, a transition in tone and mood that this band has nearly perfected. “I think I saw her say to herself, this is everything I’ve missed.”
Director Robert Kolodny described the video as “a frantic expression of the lonesome, bland and overwhelming reality that I think most people silently struggle with beneath their skin. Half way through the song when things open up, the video diverges into a fantasy of the racing mind; a longing to be somewhere else, running, dancing.”
The album draws its title from a Walt Whitman quote (“let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes”) and serves as a fist in the face of complacency, which is, equally, an apt summary of the band’s fiery live show. Big Ups will travel south to Texas this March for SXSW and upon returning home will fly to Europe for a month long tour. See below for dates!
Track listing:
01. Contain Myself
02. Capitalized
03. Posture
04. Feathers Of Yes
05. Meet Where We Are
06. Negative (Intro)
07. Negative
08. Hope For Someone
09. Knight
10. National Parks
11. So Much You
12. Proximity Effect
13. Yawp
Tour dates:
03/09 – Washington, DC @ Comet Ping Pong
03/11 – Savannah, GA @ Savannah Stopover
03/12 – Nashville, TN @ Exit/In
03/13 – Denton, TX @ 35 Denton
03/15-03/20 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
03/28 – Glasgow, UK @ Broadcast
03/29 – Manchester, UK @ Gullivers
03/30 – London, UK @ The Lexington
03/31 – Leeds, UK @ Headrow House
04/01 – Bristol, UK @ Louisiana
04/02 – Birmingham, UK @ Sunflower Lounge
04/04 – Lille, FR @ La Peniche
04/05 – Paris, FR @ Mecanique Ondulatorie
04/06 – Brussels, BE @ VK
04/08 – Groningen, NL @ Vera
04/09 – Eindhoven, NL @ Area 51 Skate Park
04/10 – Cologne, DE @ MTC
04/11 – Vienna, AT @ B72
04/12 – Bologna, IT @ Freakout Club
04/13 – Mila, IT @ Ligera
04/14 – Munich, DE @ Kranhalle
04/16 – Hamburg, DE @ Molotow
04/18 – Berlin, DE @ Cassiopeia
04/19 – Copenhagen, DK @ Loppen
04/21 – Amsterdam, NL @ OT301
