Chicago indie-rock band Ratboys have announced a new album: Singin’ to an Empty Chair is out out February 6 via New West. Featured on the album is the new single “Anywhere,” a tightly wound slice of pop-rock with a music video directed by Bobby Butterscotch. Check it out below.
Singin’ to an Empty Chair spans 11 songs—including recent track “Light Night Mountains All That”—and was produced by Chris Walla, the former Death Cab for Cutie member who also worked on the band’s 2023 album, The Window. According to a press release, singer-guitarist Julia Steiner penned most of the songs after attending therapy for the first time and finding new ways to work through a tough, but necessary, conversation with a loved one from whom she’s estranged.
“The goal is to update this person on what’s been going on in my life and to try to bridge that impasse and reach out a hand into the void,” explained Steiner. To do so, she followed the “Empty Chair” technique learned in therapy, during which a person attempts to have a difficult conversation with someone who isn’t physically present by imagining they’re in a chair opposite them and speaking directly to it.
Ratboys recently announced a 2026 North American tour, which begins on February 25, in Detroit, and lasts on through until mid-April. They’re set to perform at Pitchfork Music Festival London next month, too, alongside Upchuck and Party Dozen.
Read about The Window in “The 37 Best Rock Albums of 2023.”
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Singin’ to an Empty Chair:
01 Open Up
02 Know You Then
03 Light Night Mountains All That
04 Anywhere
05 Penny in the Lake
06 Strange Love
07 The World, So Madly
08 Just Want You to Know the Truth
09 What’s Right?
10 Burn It Down
11 At Peace in the Hundred Acre Wood
