Skeleton Coast (LP)

Skeleton Coast was recorded 30 miles east of El Paso, TX at Sonic Ranch Studios with long-time producer Matt Allison. The album contains the elements of the band's sound that fans have come to love for the past two decades but recontextualizes them in a way that somehow sounds perfectly aligned with this strange time in our collective history. Although it was written and recorded before the Coronavirus upended the world, the band's seventh studio album sounds eerily prescient as it imagines an apocalyptic future where coyotes croon and wolf packs roam free.

The Lawrence Arms have never had any agenda apart from just having fun and making good music. Since forming in Chicago in 1999 - the trio of bassist/vocalist Brendan Kelly, guitarist/vocalist Chris McCaughan and drummer Neil Hennessy - have made albums that continually challenge the boundaries of their sound. In the process they have carved out a distinctive identity in the punk community that's simultaneously gritty, beautiful, melodic and mutinous.