Garbage has premiered the first single off the band’s upcoming album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light.
The track is called “There’s No Future in Optimism,” though, as frontwoman Shirley Manson explains, its lyrics are “an action against that title.”
“Because if we allow our fatalism or our negativity to really take over, we will crumble,” Manson says. “It’s about a city, in my case, Los Angeles, but it could be anywhere where bad stuff is happening.”
Manson adds that the song reflects the protests to the 2020 police killing of George Floyd.
“I was changed entirely by seeing the footage of that cop kneeling on George Floyd’s neck,” she says. “In Los Angeles there were huge protests and a lot of upheaval after that. Above our house in Hollywood, there were helicopters all day long, for days on end. It was really precarious, chaotic and terrifying.”
“There’s No Future in Optimism” is out now via digital outlets, and you can watch its accompanying video streaming now on YouTube.
Let All That We Imagine Be the Light drops May 30. It’s the follow-up to 2021’s No Gods No Masters.
Garbage will launch a U.S. headlining tour in September. They’re also opening for a My Chemical Romance show in August.
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