Celebrated, award-winning duo Shovels & Rope releases two new tracks from their highly anticipated new album Manticore, out February 18 (Dualtone Music). Manticore is Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent’s most open and intimate release to date. The new songs “Bleed Me” and “The Show” offer a deep and revealing look into their personal lives during these current times. Listen to “Bleed Me” and “The Show” HERE.
Over the course of four critically-acclaimed albums and multiple collaborative projects, Shovels & Rope fans have grown accustomed to the astute observations and compelling character-driven narratives that permeate their songs. They often serve as a means to express their own personal thoughts, feelings, hopes and fears about the world outside and their place within it. Manticore offers an entirely new perspective from the duo as they directly address aspects of their relationship as a married couple and as parents, and they hold nothing back.
The stunning “Bleed Me” is a visceral and powerful profession of love to their two children that exudes an aching beauty in its simplicity. The track overflows with a primal emotion that transcends any traditional love song as Hearst and Trent open up their hearts and leave themselves bare. “Most parents know the transformative power of your relationship with your child. It’s such a gift, but it requires everything of yourself,” they share. “This song is a love song to our kids, an assurance that we will always be willing to give them everything of ourselves, even sometimes when it feels like there’s nothing left to give. Sure, the theme is vampiric…but vampires, like love, live forever.” Watch this captivating live performance of “Bleed Me” from their late 2021 acoustic tour HERE. It is as moving as anything they have recorded.
Defining the sometimes-gray areas between stage life and real life is the subject of “The Show”. There are many advantages to being married to your creative partner, but it also comes with its own challenges, including when to turn it on or shut it down. Hearst & Trent explain, “While most of the songs on Manticore were written well before the big break, ‘The Show’ was finished in the early months of the pandemic – deep enough into the quarantine that we had had time to do some serious self-reflection, reckon with our mortality, morality and carnality, and identify some of the walls that needed to come down between us…so yeah, like three weeks in. It’s a song where the characters are agreeing to set aside all conscriptions of externalized bullshit and reconnect with their residual better selves.”
Click HERE to pre-order Manticore and limited-edition colored vinyl.
SHOVELS & ROPE 2022 US TOUR DATES
March 22 – Charlotte, NC – Visulite Theatre
March 23 – Asheville, NC – The Orange Peel
March 25 – Atlanta, GA – Variety Playhouse
March 26 – Nashville, TN – Brooklyn Bowl
March 29 – Milwaukee, WI – Turner Hall Ballroom
March 31 – Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall
April 1 – Indianapolis, IN – The Vogue
April 2 – Ann Arbor, MI – The Ark
April 3 – Toronto, ON – Mod Club
April 5 – Albany, NY – The Egg
April 6 – Boston, MA – Paradise Rock Club
April 8 – South Orange, NJ – South Orange Performing Arts Center
