Canadian art punk band Crack Cloud have announced their new album Red Mile, set for release on July 26, along with their lead single ‘Blue Kite’.

The band, which have just signed to the independent record label Jagjaguwar, will also embark on a North American, UK, and European tour, including a show in Dublin’s Whelan’s on September 29.

Following Crack Cloud’s first two EPs and two albums, Red Mile represents a shift in the band’s sound towards a more focused rock outfit.

Listen to the lead single ‘Blue Kite’ below:

Speaking about the process of writing this new record, drummer and frontman Zach Choy said:

“When we were recording the album Red Mile in the Mojave Desert, I spent nights reading about 20th century China. My grandparents migrated to Canada during Mao’s Great Leap Forward, and besides the photo albums and childhood memories, I have little basis for understanding their experience.

“Beginning in the late 80s there came to be a generation of Chinese filmmakers whose main subject was the depiction of life during the Cultural Revolution. The films from this time examine the growing pains of national identity, without the glorification that defined National cinema up until then.

“As the viewer with a degree of generational and cultural separation, I found an unusual sense of reprieve in the nuance of it all. And as our time drifted by in the desert, I continued to look inward. The music of Red Mile came naturally, and of its own volition.”

Crack Cloud’s new album Red Mile, out July 26, is available for pre-order here. Tickets for their September 29 Whelan's show go on sale on May 17 here.

Check out the full tracklist below:

1. Crack Of Life
2. The Medium
3. Blue Kite
4. Lack Of Lack
5. Epitaph
6. I Am (I Was)
7. Ballad Of Billy
8. Lost On The Red Mile