A popular adage says that good things take time. For the Northampton dream-pop indie rock band Winterpills, that thing — their latest album, “This Is How We Dance” — took nine years.
It’s not that the band wanted to wait that long to put a new album out — rather, music-heavy plans were on hold as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, singer/keyboardist Flora Reed and singer/songwriter/guitarist Philip Price’s also welcomed their first child. Although Price released three solo records during that hiatus, getting the band together to record a full album just wasn’t possible until earlier this year.
“It is a long time, but the music’s never stopped coming,” Price said. “We finally had accumulated enough songs, and we decided, ‘Now it’s time to do it.’”
The 12-track album, “This Is How We Dance,” was released this week. Price said the name of the album and its title track came from an idea of “all of humanity unable to dance and our bodies were broken and falling down and unable to keep ourselves at rhythm.”
“First roll out of bed / hit your head / rip your eyes out / and crack the mirror,” he sings. “Grab your partner / Both fall down the stairs / Kick some chairs / Could this be any clearer? / This is how we dance.”
“I think there’s something a little bit hopeful in it, though, but it’s mainly a description of the state of humanity at this moment,” he said.
Another track on the album, “Wild,” was inspired by Price’s son and a sense of “mourning the loss of wildness in my own life, and in all our lives,” Price said, during the pandemic.
“I can still remember what it felt like to be like a tiny kid running around, completely insane, out of control, and part of that was inspired by having a little kid who was insane and out of control and witnessing his wildness and going, ‘Yes, wildness is still available to us if we want to find it,’” Price said.
In another track, “Predelugian,” the band paints a picture of humanity content in an idyllic world the night before a big flood: “Apple blossoms falling on everyone / and the wild spinning of the silver moons / and the poets swaying in the lilac blooms.”
Soon, however, a figure warns, “When you wake up underwater / don’t you look at me / You know that you were given / everything you need” — and, later, “I’m not here to save you / I’m not here to stay / I’m only here to witness this mess and be on my way.”
“I had the idea of a reluctant savior returning to earth and seeing what we’d done with it all and saying, ‘I’m not gonna help you guys, I’m outta here,’” Price laughed. “… By the end of the song, [there’s] a sense that the savior or the narrator character has kind of become completely corrupted themselves as well.”
Not only is “This Is How We Dance” Winterpills’ first album since 2016, it’s also a marker of another milestone: its release date will be (almost to the day) the 20th anniversary of their debut self-titled album, which came out in 2005. In July of this year, the band reissued the album with two new bonus tracks, “Looking Down (Flora’s Version)” and “Everybody Gets High.”
Since then, the band has seen the music-listening landscape evolve: CDs gave way to iPods and a vinyl resurgence, followed by the current ubiquity of music streaming platforms and algorithms.
“It feels very artificial to me, strange. [There] used to be much more of a mystery to being a musician. Now, everybody over-shares. Unfortunately, I don’t really do that too much because I’m just lazy,” Price joked. “It takes a lot of work to over-share.”
The band itself has changed, too — over time, long tours became less viable as members had kids and took on part-time jobs. Once the album is release, the band’s focus isn’t to be part of a heavy touring schedule, but to keep producing music videos for this album and to “play smartly — not a lot,” said Price.
More immediately, though, the band needed to get ready for its album launch concert at Iron Horse on Saturday, Nov. 8. When the Gazette spoke with Price, it was the day before the sold-out show, and he was looking forward to playing to a full house.
“I’m feeling pretty good about it,” Price said. “I think we’re a good band, and we’ll make people happy.”
To stream “This Is How We Dance,” visit winterpills.lnk.to/dance. For more information about Winterpills, visit winterpills.com.