The Dears Say Good Riddance and Hello Nasty

"I'm really grateful to be at the point that we're making another album," the Dears' Murray Lightburn tells Spinner from his Montreal home. "I'm ready to make a really nasty record. Super nasty!"

Having recently completed a 31-date North American tour, which began with the band being relieved of their tour bus by some crafty thieves, the Dears are returning to the studio to record their fifth long-player -- and first with the current line-up.

It's been almost two years since most of the Dears' previous members departed -- former guitarist Patrick Krief and drummer George Donoso III quit to focus on their own band, Black Diamond Bay, while bassist Martin Pelland and keyboardist Valérie Jodoin-Keaton were asked to leave.

This left lead singer/songwriter Lightburn and his wife Natalia Yanchack as the group's only permanent members.

The Dears' last album, 2008's 'Missiles' (which featured both Krief and Donoso), documented the whole sordid mess with the melodramatic flair the pop-noir band has become known for.

"I think with 'Missiles' there was definitely a lot of mellowness and wallowing and crying in your beer -- and rightfully so: It was a funeral," Lightburn says. "I think if we could have gotten away with calling it 'Funeral,' we would have. Unfortunately, it was already taken [by Arcade Fire's debut]."

Invigorated by the new touring lineup -- which includes former members of Land of Talk and Kill the Lights -- Lightburn sees the next album as an opportunity to wipe the slate clean. "It's time to put that period behind us and start fresh. I think 'Missiles' leveled the field and now we can go into our 'Achtung Baby' era," he says, referring to U2's classic musical reinvention. "I envision this next album to be a chance for people to rediscover the Dears in the way that they first discovered them, be it on 'End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story,' 'No Cities Left' or even 'Gang of Losers.'"

But though the future may look a bit rosier, don't expect the songs to be any more light-hearted than usual. "It's still going to be an angry record. There's always been a lot of that," Lightburn notes. "Whether it's overt or subtle, rage has played a big part in the Dears."