The Dears will bring their ninth studio album to Montreal’s Le National on November 20, just two weeks after the release of Life Is Beautiful! Life Is Beautiful! Life Is Beautiful! The November 7 release marks the band’s first new material since 2020’s Lovers Rock, and finds founding members Murray Lightburn and Natalia Yanchak emerging from a period of creative exploration with renewed focus and a tighter sound.
The eleven-track collection takes its title from a moment of clarity Lightburn experienced during the band’s 20th anniversary shows for No Cities Left. Standing onstage surrounded by his family and longtime collaborators, he asked the audience to repeat the phrase three times as a mantra. That sentiment (acknowledging life’s difficulties while affirming its beauty) runs through the album’s veins. The band has already shared three tracks, including “Tomorrow And Tomorrow,” a song that channels mid-century doo-wop beneath The Dears’ characteristic orchestral sweep, with a black-and-white video directed by Kevin Drew and Rachael McLean.
The recording process marked a departure for the Montreal group. While they returned to Hotel2Tango for tracking, Lightburn applied the discipline of his recent film and television work (he won a 2025 Canadian Screen Award for scoring Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story) to keep sessions focused. The band completed the album in a month, with final mixing at Lightburn’s Murmajesty studio. Meanwhile, Yanchak had been working in video game production, bringing fresh perspective to the project.
The hometown show launches a short Ontario run before the band heads to Europe in February, hitting Rotterdam, Paris, London, and Glasgow. After three decades of building their sound (from the lo-fi beginnings of End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story through the Polaris-shortlisted Gang of Losers and beyond) The Dears have arrived at something both familiar and forward-looking. It’s the confidence that comes from experience, and the wisdom to know that sometimes the simplest truths need to be said three times to stick.
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