Throughout 2020, lockdowns meant that the band members of JUNO Award-winning Vancouver group Said The Whale were at home, away from the relentless touring cycle that had defined most of their 14-year career. Singer-songwriters Tyler Bancroft and Ben Worcester, plus keyboardist Jaycelyn Brown and bassist Lincoln Hotchen, threw themselves fully into working on new material with producer Steve Bays (Hot Hot Heat) at his Tugboat Place Studio, resulting in the most towering, maximalist music of their careers.

Brand new single, “Honey Lungs,” is a bright and bubbly anthem, its crunchy rock swagger shot through with frenzied drum fills and sugar-spiked pop singalongs. Co-written jointly in the studio by Tyler and Ben, the song’s lyrics address today’s fraught political climate while placing an emphasis on empathy. They wrote it around the same time they dropped off of a festival bill as an act of solidarity with anti-racist groups.