Hop Along stream ‘Painted Shut’ album in full

Hop Along are streaming their second album ‘Painted Shut’ in full, ahead of its 4th May release on Saddle Creek.

The follow-up to a 2012 debut, this new release sees Frances Quinlan and co. tackling difficult themes with serious gusto. In the May issue of DIY (out now), the band tell Ali Shutler about the stories of Buddy Bolden and Jackson C. Frank, two groundbreaking musicians beset by mental health problems. Their deaths - each of them lonely, destitute ends - were characterised by a broad lack of empathy and understanding. “If you had mental illness in the early 1900s, you were in major trouble,” Quinlan said. “You still are today. [Bolden] died in an asylum, his sister couldn’t keep up with the payments of the burial so they basically kept digging him up and burying people on top of him, to the point that they don’t know where he’s buried.”

Listen to Hop Along’s new album in full below.