The Barr Brothers announce new album "Let It Hiss" out 17th October via Secret City Records || Share LP title track

photo credit: Lauren Kallen

The Barr Brothers today announce their new album Let it Hiss due out 17th October via Secret City Records and available to preorder here. Their long-simmering and long-awaited fourth studio album isn’t just a collection of 10 vital new songs; it’s a document of transformation. The result of a pivotal shift: a pause for reflection, a reckoning with vulnerability, and a reconnection between two brothers - Brad and Andrew Barr - who’ve spent their entire lives making music side by side. Let it Hiss was produced by Brad and Andrew, working primarily as a duo out of their Montreal studio with mix engineer Jon Low (The National, Taylor Swift, Bon Iver). To accompany today’s announcement the band have shared the album’s anthemic title track – listen HERE.

While Let it Hiss is eight years in the making, it does not suggest a period of inactivity for the brothers. Andrew has spent time playing drums for Feist, Mumford and Sons and Broken Social Scene. Brad has explored a wide array of collaborations and released a meditative solo album in 2022. The Barr Brothers touring has included dates with My Morning Jacket and The War On Drugs.

Since 2017’s Queens of the Breakers, life has pulled Brad and Andrew in new directions both professionally and personally. It altered their creative process, a deep-rooted approach that required triage. “In 2022, we found ourselves at a breaking point,” says Brad Barr, the band’s guitarist, vocalist, and primary songwriter. “It was clear something had to change. The real story of this record is the story of that change and everything that came after.” “Let it Hiss is what happened when we stopped pretending everything was fine and finally listened to what was actually going on,” says Andrew, the band’s drummer, percussionist, and vocalist.

Recording became a mirror. The process didn’t begin with sound - it began with truth. They confronted not just creative blocks, but personal ones. Old patterns. Unspoken tensions. Grief. Growth. The album title itself is an ethos. “It just felt right,” Andrew says. “To leave the hiss in. The discomfort, the imperfection, the struggle. We stopped trying to clean it all up. That’s when the music started to breathe again.”

Let it Hiss showcases two esteemed musicians and composers at the height of their powers, both known for their commands over their instruments, and coaxing otherworldly sounds out of them. It also revels in a joyous abandon, as heard on “Run Right Into It” (featuring Land of Talk’s Elizabeth Powell) and “She Doesn’t Sleep With the Covers On.” It also revisits the kinds of intimate, hushed songs on which the Barrs’ brand was built: “English Harbour” is a folk hymn illuminated by harmonies by Jim James of My Morning Jacket, and “Moonbeam” is a string-swept soul serenade with a Francophone guest vocal from Quebecois art-pop shapeshifter Klô Pelgag. But all the freewheeling musical exploration and emotional upheaval that plays out over the course of Let it Hiss still won’t prepare for the album’s closer “Upsetter,” a blast of sweat-soaked, punk-powered rock capped by a lobotomizing guitar solo. And while the album was self-produced, they also called on trusted friends from their wider musical community to lend voices, instruments, and textures when the songs called for it - collaborations that felt less like features and more like natural extensions of the music. Many of these relationships were built over years of shared stages, late-night sessions, and a mutual commitment to the craft. Including the album art, created by artist Brigitte Henry, Brad’s wife, who also designed the covers for their albums Queens of the Breakers and Sleeping Operator. In this way, Let it Hiss stands as both their most personal and most collaborative record to date.

About The Barr Brothers:

Since releasing their 2011 self-titled debut, The Barr Brothers have been welcomed onto international festival bills and late-night talk show stages (including multiple Letterman appearances). 2014’s Sleeping Operator (certified Gold in Canada) yielded the breakthrough single “Even the Darkness Has Arms,” which has racked up 110-plus million Spotify streams and counting. 2017’s Queens of the Breakers showcased their improvisatory chops with a greater emphasis on raw blues jams and experiments with brass and strings. Across this span, they earned three Félix Awards in Quebec, three JUNO Award nominations for Alternative Album of the Year, and a Polaris Music Prize longlist placement. Their music has also been heard on programs like True Detective, Your Honor, Catfish Rookie Blue and more, and their work has earned praise from legends such as Robert Plant, David Crosby and Bon Iver. The Barr Brothers will also announce a headline tour soon, stay tuned for more information.

Let It Hiss tracklist:

1. Take it From Me

2. Let it Hiss

3. English Harbour

4. Run Right Into It

5. Moonbeam

6. She Doesn’t Sleep with the Covers On

7. Naturally

8. Owning Up to Everyone

9. Another Tangerine

10. Upsetter