I Am The Avalanche Announces New Album 'DIVE'

Six years after the release of Wolverines (#108 on the Billboard 200), New York punk act I Am The Avalanche is back. The band has announced their highly anticipated new album DIVE, out November 20th via I Surrender Records. They're giving fans a first taste today with "Better Days," a wistful song about raising a glass to better times. The song is premiering now on Rock Sound, alongside an exclusive interview with vocalist Vinnie Caruana. Pre-orders for DIVE are available starting Friday, October 2nd (including limited vinyl bundles) at: https://orcd.co/iatadive.

"We all need this for our souls," shares Caruana. "For my relationship with music, I need this record to come out, to have people hear what we've made. Maybe this record will be there for somebody... I'm sure that it will."

I Am The Avalanche is a force you just can't kill. Over its decade-and-a-half existence, the Brooklyn band has routinely faced and overcome personal, professional and existential challenges. Enter DIVE, I Am The Avalanche's first album since 2014's Wolverines and a convincing new chapter in the band's hard-earned reputation. Out November 20 on I Surrender Records, DIVE confronts a crushing year for independent musicians and comes out guns blazing, wall-to-wall with anthemic post-hardcore fight songs.

Recording sessions for DIVE wrapped March 15, 2020, the weekend much of America first came to terms with the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and took shelter indoors. After some last-call lyrical additions (notably the title track's resounding salvo, "We suffer together / no one's alone") Caruana fled North Jersey's Barber Shop Studios to quarantine with his wife Laura in Brooklyn. Nevertheless, they were quickly hit with awful news. "We both got sick with coronavirus and quarantined together," Caruana says. "Having her with me was a huge part of why this year wasn't as dark as it could have been."

Caruana acknowledges the good fortune of their eventual recoveries after a couple bedridden weeks, along with the fact most of DIVE's most dire lyrics were penned prior to the lockdown. "This has been coming," he insists. "Pre-pandemic, things were still sty. Our country has been turned upside-down by the current administration. So the songs that sound like they were written yesterday... I don't think that's going to change."

Across DIVE, Caruana and guitarist/songwriting partner Mike Ireland, bassist Kellen Robson and guitarist Brandon Swanson plow through emotional maelstroms with cutting wit and hard-earned wisdom. Drummer Brett "The Ratt" Romnes, a powerhouse behind the kit and the band's producer, is the keeper of Avalanche's melodic flame. The band's mission statement is clear from the opening jolt of "Better Days" through the first line of "The Morning," DIVE's mountainous closer: "If I'm still alive come the morning, if I somehow make it through / you'll be the reason I still breathe; yes, I'll owe it all to you."

Plenty of I Am The Avalanche fans have been shouting along to Caruana's lyrics since he first grabbed the mic for Long Island legends The Movielife in the late '90s; with DIVE, that connection may be less tactile, but it's every bit as vital.

Listen to "Better Days" here:

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