Twenty years of We Are Scientists Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of 'With Love and Squalor' Playing the album in full, plus all the hits w/ Sean McVerry \*\*\* In an industry where bands routinely burst onto the scene with meteoric intensity only to fade just as quickly, We Are Scientists have quietly crafted one of alternative rock's most remarkable sustained careers. For over two decades, the New York-based outfit — comprising founding members Keith Murray and Chris Cain — has consistently delivered sharp, infectious indie rock, maintaining the rare ability to evolve without losing their essential DNA. Now, with their ninth studio album, Qualifying Miles, arriving July 18th, the band continues to defy expectations, this time by looking back even as they push forward. In time for the 20th anniversary of their seminal debut, We Are Scientists will release their ninth studio album, Qualifying Miles, on July 18th. This record finds the band revisiting childhood roots, embracing the raw immediacy of guitar-driven indie rock they were weaned on. “Every producer we’ve ever met has pitched us a ‘band-in-a-room’ recording approach,” Keith explains. “We always found that uninspired. But this group of songs really seemed to call for exactly that kind of stripped-down energy.” Twenty years after their breakthrough, Murray and Cain continue to approach their craft with the same blend of intelligence, wit, and musical adventurousness that put them on the musical map. As they wrote to fans at the close of last year: "Although we aren't getting any younger, but are rather simply staying the same age, we plan to keep this entertainment company afloat for a long time yet.” With Qualifying Miles and a busy 2025 touring schedule, there’s much more to come from We Are Scientists — drawing thoughtfully from their past while charting a course for musical territory they’ve yet to explore. \*\*\* Sean McVerry is a Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer emerging as a compelling voice in contemporary independent music. As a solo artist, McVerry combines sophisticated songwriting with an eclectic, cinematic sensibility, creating music that is both immediate and unmistakably his own. STEVE is the latest offering in the florid repertoire of McVerry. Since his debut record Death of the Golden Boy released in 2020, he’s released an EP with his other project TELECOMS, and released a short song every week for half of 2024 on a project known as Menagerie. As a highly prolific songwriter, STEVE was an exercise in creative constraints. It was crafted and chipped away over the course of two years in tandem with a weekly ritual of Brooklyn songwriters known as “song challenge”. McVerry, along with members of We Are Scientists, Au Revoir Simone, Chairlift and others would designate a day once a week to write and record as many songs as humanly possible, sharing them in a roundtable that evening. This yielded an unwieldy pile of over ninety songs. As time went on and the list was refined, an album narrative became clear. It was a snapshot of an omnipresent metropolitan mania, a cynical nihilistic presence rearing its head around the door of the subway - and ultimately, the quiet resistance and defeat of that nihilism through the love and fortitude of your closest friends. The album was recorded and produced by McVerry and Zeno Pittarelli, with additional engineering from Abe Seiferth (Battles, DFA, Nation of Language).