Jun 2024
Balance and Composure is an American alternative rock band from Doylestown, Pennsylvania. They formed in the winter of 2007, after the breakup of two local Doylestown bands. The band's musical style has been compared those of Nirvana and fellow Pennsylvanians Title Fight. Their early influences included Nirvana, Neutral Milk Hotel, Sunny Day Real Estate, Jawbreaker, and Braid. They released three studio albums and two EPs over the initial course of their career. Their second album The Things We Think We're Missing reached number 51 on the Billboard 200, number 10 on the Independent Albums, number 13 on the Modern Rock/Alternative Albums and number 16 on the Rock Albums charts. On December 14, 2017, on Taylor Madison's Strange Nerve podcast, vocalist Jon Simmons announced that their upcoming anniversary tour would be their last. On January 14, 2019 a press release went out on the band's Twitter account announcing a farewell tour. Six dates were confirmed, saying that "These shows are the only shows we have planned in our future, we would love if you joined us one last time." The band later added extra dates due to high demand.
2016’s Light We Made was meant to be the final full-length record from Pennsylvania rock band Balance and Composure. When they announced their breakup in 2019, things weren’t clicking the way they used to; it felt like the group had run out of road. But when the pandemic took hold the following year and ripped away all routine, vocalist and guitarist Jon Simmons started to miss his long-time bandmates. “Once everything is taken away from you, you remember what you like about it, and the pure reasonings of actually just having fun and using music as an outlet,” he says.
Eventually, lead guitarist Erik Petersen reached out to his former bandmates—Simmons, bassist Matt Warner, and guitarist Andy Slaymaker—with a simple question: How would they feel about simply trying to write music together again? Everyone agreed—the absence had weighed heavily on them. Along with new drummer Dennis Wilson, the friends gathered in October 2022 and began to write new songs. “I began to feel like a kid again,” says Simmons. “We were writing these songs for the pure reason of having an outlet and getting together with your friends, no pressure. We were longing for it, and we found it as soon as we got together. We didn’t want that train to stop.”
After a few years of writing over weekend sessions, the band began the long process of recording. For the first time, says Simmons, every decision was mutually agreed upon by all members, making it perhaps the most collaborative period in Balance and Composure history. In 2023, they released the first taste of this new era: the comeback EP Too Quick To Forgive, with two new singles. Now, they’re unveiling their first full-length release in eight years.
with you in spirit, the fourth Balance and Composure LP, is an arresting, atmospheric collection of melodic post-punk and towering rock. The record’s cover photo, taken by Simmons at a family reunion last summer, is a striking capture of the world Balance and Composure have conjured across these 10 songs: while two children play on a lawn excitedly, a summer storm’s dark gray-blue clouds loom in the background. Indeed, with you in spirit thunders and stirs, dipping between beautiful, crystalline arrangements and punishing, earth-shaking climaxes; in between all, a gripping, near-physical tension crackles and growls and grooves, waiting to rip open.
with you in spirit is due out October 4 on Memory Music, the label created by Grammy-nominated producer Will Yip. When Yip heard the band was writing music again, he phoned them up and asked to be involved. “I literally told them I would do anything to be a part of this record,” laughs Yip, who produced the band’s breakout 2013 record The Things We Think We’re Missing along with their 2016 and 2023 releases. “Balance and Composure is one of the most important bands to my career, my life, my production development. When they went away in 2019, I was broken-hearted.