In November 2017, the remaining members of Friend of All The World’s rotating cast loaded their gear into Montreal’s Breakglass Studio to lay down some tracks. The song structures were set, the lyrics and melodies written. But contrary to the band’s previous three albums, the final sound of the project was left to be decided by whatever creative impulses the studio conjured. The result was two EPs—My Fault and Your Problem—that coney the band’s two unreconciled sides.

In the aftermath of 2015’s Rue St. Louis, the band scaled back with founder Rob Cole (vocals, guitar, keys, synths) and longtime collaborator Céline Bianchi (vocals, keys, bass) left as its only standing members. But fate is fickle, and right around this time a letter appeared offering a generous songwriting grant from the Conseil des Arts et Lettres du Québec (CALQ). Instead of doubling down on the promotion of Rue St. Louis, the duo found a new drummer (Louis Angers), rented a jam-space, picked up some new instruments, and got to work on new material.

FOATW has always been genre-fluid, since the folk-tinged Up these Branches (2010), through the earthy The Wild (2012), and into indie rock with Rue-St-Louis (2015). With this newfound time and space, the band aimed to expand their sonic exploration to the digital realm. For My Fault and Your Problem, they incorporated synths and sequenced drums into their musical pallet while staying true to core themes: the singular, personal experiences, and events both grand and mundane, that lives are built upon.

While this process was providing renewed creative energy, the relationship between Cole and Bianchi had strained to the breaking point and led to a six month hiatus, during which time the two exchanged barely an email. Both continued to develop their own material en solo, however. So when they decided, with nothing left to lose, to take a shot at reconciliation by means of intensive studio sessions, it was with a healthy roster of new material.

With these two new EPs and the help of producer/musician Tim Gowdy (The Barr Brothers, Mulatu Astatke), FOATW has taken their song craft–honed through years of acoustic and analogue production–to new levels of intensity. They harness all the rage, pessimism, and conflict of the band’s past three years, but also bloom with grace, beauty, and hope. On My Fault/Your Problem, FOATW unleashes their darker side while bearing out Leonard Cohen’s immortal words: there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.