Great Grandpa announced their new album, Patience, Moonbeam, out March 28th via Run For Cover Records, and presented a rollicking new single, “Junior.” Patience, Moonbeam is Great Grandpa’s first record in five years. The band has been on a clear trajectory of both refining and re-defining their sonic identity, from the sparkling pop-grunge of their first record Plastic Cough (2017), to the sprawling indie rock of critically acclaimed Four of Arrows (2019). Patience, Moonbeam delivers on that promise, taking the band’s DNA and elevating it. It’s prismatic and deeply moving — the sound of lifelong friends and collaborators growing up and growing together.

There was a moment in the fall of 2021 when Great Grandpa didn’t know if they would go on. They had just begun work on the follow-up to Four of Arrows when they met a moment of reckoning. Each member was being called in new directions. Al Menne moved to LA and made a solo album. Dylan Hanwright got married and began producing for other bands. Cam LaFlam started selling books, later opening up his own bookstore. Pat and Carrie Goodwin moved to Denmark and had a baby. But as with any good relationship built on mutual love, trust, and a mountain of shared history, the quintet—who grew up in Seattle and have been making music together for a decade—were drawn back into one another’s orbits in 2023. After reconnecting, the band decided to scrap most of what they had previously recorded and start afresh, this time with the new perspective of their momentous years apart.

This Is Pop? today’s song of the day is here for you.