The influential band of Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith returns with a brand new single.
New wave fans rejoice because Tears For Fears just dropped a new song titled “Tipping Point” Friday.
The new track is the first new material from Tears for Fears in 17 years. Now that’s definitely a long while and as the saying goes, time spares no one, even these heroes of 80s new wave and pop-rock.
Roland Orzabal is looking (as a friend said) quite like the wizard Gandalf with his long white hair and beard. Curt Smith, with the short-cropped graying ‘do that he’s been sporting for many years now, is looking fine and fit despite obvious lines and signs of aging.
But enough about their looks (Orzabal and Smith still look cool mind you). The important thing is, how do they sound now?
The good news is that the Tears for Fears sound is pretty much intact.
“Tipping Point” opens dramatically with synths and whatnot, electronic beats, spacious sounding guitars that ricochet within. Until it finally picks up as the all-too-familiar voices Orzabal and Smith intone the song's choruses of “You know that I can’t love you more.”
As per their usual M.O., Orzabal leads on the first few verses, as he croons in a deep voice, “Silver tongue, they’ll soon be gone / when the sunlight hits the room /lay down with them if you want/watch their breath and feel the cold.”
Eventually, Smith, whose vocals are in the higher register, joins in as if urging their listener to choose: “Raise your hand, bite your tongue /conversation is over and done / will you let them out? Will you let them? Will you ever know it’s the tipping point?”
Asked about their latest composition, Smith answered, “Not to sound too maudlin, but it’s about watching someone slowly die, unfortunately. And when you actually let them go, and when you know that they’ve gone.”
The singer-songwriter and bassist also said that the theme of “Tipping Point” reflects the political situations in America (where the duo worked on the recording) and the climate crisis. Smith also shared that, “The tipping point sums up all of the things that have been going on for the last couple of years.”
As to why the duo took all this time to come up with new material, Smith said that he and Orzabal had been working on it for “a long, long, long time.”
“Our kids are now older now which allowed us to start working more. Also, Roland comes back and forth in England. I’m based in L.A. pretty much all the time. So we have that trans-Atlantic thing we have to deal with as well. It took us a while, it took us a few false starts but we kept going until we came up with something that we were happy with.”
Just recently Tears for Fears were bestowed the Ivor Awards for Outstanding Song Collection. The award is “purely for songwriting and composing and not based on performance (or) if you are the artist, or how big the song is. It’s more about the quality of the songwriting. It’s really gratifying to win that,” said Smith of Tears for Fears’ recent recognition
It was during the awards ceremony that the duo announced that a new single is forthcoming. And the best thing about the new single? It’s just the first track off a forthcoming new full album.
That’s right, New Wave fans, a new Tears for Fears album is coming around February 2022 as confirmed by Smith.