As its Stateside touring schedule winds down in support of its self-titled Island debut, the Bravery has begun giving audiences a sneak peak at the new songs “Angelina” and “Oh Glory,” which could end up on its sophomore album.
“These aren’t necessarily for the next album,” guitarist Michael Zakarin tells Billboard.com. “They’re songs that are kind of finished and are quite different. There’s more backing vocals in those two tracks and they definitely show another side of the band. I think it’s showing where we could potentially go in any direction. So for us, we’ll have to wait and see where we choose to go but I think we’re looking for new angles. Definitely going slightly different and obviously progressing is our main goal.”
With over a dozen more “pieces of songs floating around” from one band member’s laptop to another, the quintet is primed to hit the studio sometime this spring to follow up the debut, which has sold 292,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Despite being somewhat tired of the road and ready for a respite, the Bravery will head overseas next month for an 11-week opening slot with Depeche Mode in Europe.
“We’ve been touring with Depeche Mode in the States for the past few weeks and we really wanted to do the European tour with them,” Zakarin says. “For us, it’s a great match. We still believe that they’re incredibly relevant in what they’re doing and they sound great. And we see kind of a mirror image in some way of ourselves. For us, it’s all about kind of having timeless songs where it doesn’t matter what the vibe of the music is or what the sound is. Their songs could be played on an acoustic guitar and still sound like great songs.”
And while the Bravery’s next album could be more than a year off, Zakarin says a DVD is in the works that will hopefully keep fans happy in the interim.
“We’ve been shooting and documenting the past year, everywhere we’ve gone, and we really enjoy making videos,” Zakarin says. “We have lots of friends who have made videos of [our] songs and we’re actually looking to maybe do a video for every song on the album and put that out perhaps.”
