Longtime Philly punk singer-songwriter Joshua Alvarez is back in action with his antithetic five-piece Crossed Keys.
The band’s latest album, Believes In You, was just announced this week, and is due out May 5th on Dead Satellite Records; it’s the band’s first since 2019’s Saviors, and is a blistering set of songs focused on community, growth and nostalgia — most importantly, as Alvarez puts it in a press release, it’s about “supporting the people around you.”
The album was announced this week with the release of its anthemic opening track, “Victim Complex,” a soaring tune indebted equally to Hüsker Dü and Bouncing Souls, and Alvarez says it “is about the lack of accountability in a time when narratives are so easily manipulated to suit those who hurt people.”
The song is lean and mean with expert playing from scene vets: drummer Dave Wagenschutz (Kid Dynamite), bassist Andrew Wellbrock (Zolof the Rock & Roll Destroyer), and guitarists Beau Brendley (Kill The Man Who Questions) and Dave Adoff (Step Ahead). Listen below, and pre-order Believes In You here. (Fun fact: the cover photo of the inside of the legendary Trocadero Theater was taken by WXPN’s Matthew Shaver for his 2014 Load-In To Load-Out feature on the venue.)
Crossed Keys performs May 6th at Venice Island for Dave Hause’s inaugural Sing Us Home Festival. For tickets and information on that festival, head to WXPN’s Concerts and Events page.