25 years into their astonishing career, someone asked the late and great Charlie Watts how he would sum up his tenure in The Rolling Stones. “Five years of playing and twenty years of sitting around and waiting” came the answer from the minimalist yet genius drummer. And in a way, this reply applies to most of us. We spend long stretches of time waiting or fantasizing about something that may or may not happen in the future, all the while wasting our present.

A Permanent Shadow have tackled the concept of mindfulness and living in the now in past releases, such as the single “Now” from debut album “Songs of Loss” or “Play Dead” from 2022’s “Humdrum”. New single “The Wait” also falls into this category. The song’s protagonist, a seemingly unloved underachiever, laments his life situation feeling like a “worn out one-trick pony” and would rather “go to the beach and get comatose” on alcohol than take life into his own hands, until he realizes that life is passing us by while one is “sitting and waiting and hoping and praying” for changes that will not come until you provoke them through your own initiative.

Musically, “The Wait” is drenched in Eighties synths in the vein of bands like Future Islands and driven by a dry rhythm guitar part reminiscent of early Talking Heads. The single edit of the song heralds the release of A Permanent Shadow’s third album, “No Leaf Clover”, out on March 15th. The album has a loose thematical thread of unhealthy relationships both on a personal and a geopolitical level and touches controversial issues such as civil war, child abuse, toxicity and corruption.

"The Wait" is out on February 23rd. Album "No Leaf Clover" follows on March 15th.