photo by Barrett Emke

Kevin Morby has announced he will release his fifth solo studio album, Oh My God, on April 26 via Dead Oceans, along with sharing the video for the effort’s first single, “No Halo.”

“Religion is around all of us,” Morby says in a press release, which calls Oh My God the songwriter’s “first true concept album.” “It’s a universal language and there is profound beauty in it. I’ve found it a useful tool within songwriting, as it’s something everyone can relate to on some level. There are religious themes or imagery in a lot of what I’ve done, so I wanted to get all of that out and speak only that language for a whole record. It’s not a born-again thing; it’s more that ‘oh my god’ is such a profound statement we all use multiple times a day and means so many different things. It’s not about an actual god but a perceived one, and it’s an outsider’s view of the human experience in terms of religion.”

Oh My God was produced with help from Sam Cohen, who also took part in Morby’s 2016 record Singing Saw, at Cohen’s Brooklyn studio. At Cohen’s suggestion, the two aimed to make a sparse, “pop-art” album together. “My other records had tons of colors,” Morby says, “so we decided to keep this stark, like a painting that’s black-and-white with one vibrant blue.”

Below, watch the video for “No Halo,” directed by Chris Good, and pre-order Oh My God here.

Oh My God Tracklist:

1. Oh My God
2. No Halo
3. Nothing Sacred / All Things Wild
4. OMG Rock n Roll
5. Seven Devils
6. Hail Mary
7. Piss River
8. Savannah
9. Storm (Beneath The Weather)
10. Congratulations
11. I Want To Be Clean
12. Sing A Glad Song
13. Ballad Of Faye
14. O Behold