Future Bible Heroes

On June 4, Future Bible Heroes released Partygoing, their third album, on Merge Records. In addition, Merge will compile all three Future Bible Heroes albums and an additional disc of EP tracks into one newly remastered collection entitled Memories of Love, Eternal Youth, and Partygoing.

Future Bible Heroes is one of the musical projects from the Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt, who writes all the melodies and lyrics for the band. His longtime friend and collaborator Christopher Ewen composes the instrumental backing tracks. Joining Merritt on lead vocals is the Magnetic Fields’ Claudia Gonson.

Partygoing features the signature Future Bible Heroes mix of dancefloor-filling club anthems and super-sad ballads. The record is their first release since 2002’s Eternal Youth. Why the long break between albums? Well, the trio has been busy. Merritt has made four stage musicals, four Magnetic Fields albums, a Gothic Archies album, and done some film work. Ewen has been working on another band, the Hidden Variable, and DJing in Boston. Gonson has discovered parenthood while navigating the Magnetic Fields’ busy post-69 Love Songs schedule.

Future Bible Heroes are known for their fantastical lyrical themes, which on prior albums were frequently preoccupied with B-movies, science fiction, aliens, robots, disco dancing, and committing suicide on camera. Along with songs like “Keep Your Children in a Coma,” which is about keeping youngsters under sedation until they pass through their vulnerable teenage years, Partygoing features a number of songs that meditate upon both the good and bad sides of parties: there’s the fun, and then there’s the morning after. Running themes for this album are drinking, dancing, and death. “The songs ‘When Evening Falls on Tinseltown’ and ‘A Drink Is Just the Thing’ are quite old,” Merritt says. “The first describes my experience of living in Los Angeles?and leaving it, which I did while recording Partygoing; the second describes solving all your problems with alcohol, which I don’t do much anymore either. Writing true and heartfelt lyrics is pointless because once you get around to singing them, they’re lies.”

Memories of Love, Eternal Youth and Partygoing. marks the first time the entire original Future Bible Heroes catalog has been available in one place. In addition to the three full-length albums, the CD collection includes a fourth disc that compiles the band’s three EPs – The Lonely Robot, I’m Lonely (And I Love It), and Lonely Days – plus several tracks from outside compilations, including a song from the soundtrack to the film Welcome to the Dollhouse and the band’s hilarious gender-bending rendition of “Don’t You Want Me?” from a tribute album to the Human League. The LP collection includes each of the three albums (Memories of Love, Eternal Youth, and Partygoing) on vinyl plus a download card containing all of the EP and compilation tracks as well as digital versions of the full-lengths.