Imperial Teen’s “Hands All Up” Turns the Music Industry’s Push and Pull Into Pure Pop and It Works Completely

Imperial Teen’s second single from All Over You zeroes in on one of the album’s central concerns: the uneasy relationship between capitalism and making art. “Hands All Up” captures the headspinning rush of music industry success and the disappointment that follows, and wraps it in the kind of buoyant, boy-girl pop that makes you forget the lyrical content is doing real work. “We want to make people dance and think and feel at the same time,” Will Schwartz says. Three decades in, Roddy Bottum, Schwartz, Jone Stebbins, and Lynn Truell are still delivering all three at once.

The album was built from periodic writing retreats followed by scattered recording sessions across different cities, which is the only way a band spread this far apart can make records. The process makes their time together rare and potent. The title track came together with glass jars and found percussion, vintage Moogs, and vocal breaths used as rhythmic texture. “Overdrive” was captured in a single magical take before Schwartz had to catch a ferry. The whole record has that quality of things coming together quickly and correctly, which is not a coincidence so much as the result of thirty years of chemistry.

The fall headline tour runs coast to coast through November, with new dates in Washington DC and Durham added to the routing. Pre-order below.

Pre-order All Over You ↗

1“Overdrive”

2“Hands All Up”

3“All Over You”

4“A Single Chair”

5“Get You Home”

6“On the Island”

7“Kiss It Goodbye”

8“Probably So”

9“Have a Shout”

10“Bringing It Down”