The Human Hearts are excited to announce their new album Faith & Credit out November 13 on Dromedary Records. The band has shared their album’s lead single “Still In Error” and its accompanying music video directed by Scott Jacobson (The Daily Show, Bob’s Burgers). 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8tnPdJertk

Faith & Credit is the fourth full-length from The Human Hearts, the Queens-and-Brooklyn indie band fronted by veteran songwriter Franklin Bruno (Nothing Painted Blue, The Extra Glenns/Lens), and their first release for Dromedary Records. Recorded and mixed by jangle-pop legend Mitch Easter (R.E.M., Game Theory, Let’s Active) at his Fidelitorium Studio in North Carolina, the album’s 13 songs move freely between propulsive Yo La Tengo/Clean-style drone, post-punk art-funk, polished roots-pop, Motown/Mersey stomp, and harder-to-pin-down hybrids.

The album’s stylistic range is unified by assured band performances, Bruno’s unpretentious vocals, and his sharply observed songwriting, which pairs wit, concision, and an ear for rhyme with pointed political and social commentary. As Robert Christgau wrote of 2024’s Viable, “Bruno writes socially conscious although not therefore ideological songs, which means he’s a very smart guy who sees the world the way I and I bet you do.”

On Faith & Credit, Bruno turns his attention to urban isolation (“Cover Your Tracks!”), financial instability (“Faith & Credit”), infrastructure policy (“Shovel-Ready”), and the uncertainties of middle age (“Still in Error”), alongside more personal subjects like renting a backhouse month-to-month (“Guesthouse”). These aren’t finger-wagging protest songs so much as clear-eyed observations of what it means, and how it feels, to exist in America now.

Though rooted in Bruno’s songwriting, The Human Hearts are very much a band. Bruno (vocals/guitar/keyboards) has released more than 20 albums since 1990, first with Southern California’s Nothing Painted Blue and later as a solo artist, and has worked with The Mountain Goats, Tsunami, Laura Cantrell, and The Schramms. He is also the author of a book on Elvis Costello’s Armed Forces in Bloomsbury’s 33⅓ series and the poetry collection The Accordion Repertoire. Longtime collaborator Matt Houser (drums/percussion), a friend of Bruno’s since the Nothing Painted Blue days, has appeared on every Human Hearts release since 2012’s Another. Pete Galub (guitar) makes Faith & Credit his first album as the band’s fully integrated second guitarist, while Brandon Kalber (bass) was a full participant in the album’s rehearsing, arranging, and recording. Bob Bannister has since taken over bass duties for the band’s live shows.

The album also features a cast of longtime collaborators and guests, including Annie Nero on vocals, Mark Spencer (Son Volt, Laura Cantrell) on harmony vocals, and horns and strings recorded in Brooklyn by Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu, They Might Be Giants). A string quartet led by Jean Cook (Waco Brothers, Ida) adds an unexpected flourish to “Our Films, Their Films,” while Maimone also contributes tambourine and guitar.

For all its weighty subject matter, Faith & Credit is ultimately a vital, hook-filled rock record, driven by a cracking rhythm section, sharply executed guitars, memorable melodies, harmonies, and inventive textures. Fans of the dB’s, Go-Betweens, and Verlaines will find plenty to latch onto, but The Human Hearts sound unmistakably like themselves, whether or not they’re, as Bruno puts it, “Still in Error.”