After a 15-year hiatus, Chicago punk veterans The Arrivals return with Payload, their first new album since 2010’s Volatile Molotov. Coming soon via Recess Records, the album marks a long-awaited and triumphant return for one of Chicago’s most revered and enduring punk bands. Today, they share the album’s first single, “Just Like My Brother.”
Payload was recorded by Joe Gac (Meat Wave) at Chicago’s legendary Electrical Audio, and captured their powerful, dynamic sound in a way that practically jumps out of the speakers.
Talking about the making of the new album, the guitarist/singer Little Dave Merriman says: “It’s still wild to me how every time we get into a room together, after being separated by large swaths of miles and time, we just pick up exactly where we left off. We’ve used the word ‘magic’ unironically more than once. This record definitely captures who we are now, 16 years after our last record, and it shows. It’s got some flavors we haven’t served up yet. But it’s 100% us. 100% Arrivals.”
