Sixteen years away from releasing music inevitably changes a band’s perspective. For Reading indie-rock group The Race, that distance has brought parenthood, responsibility and a deeper awareness of the generations surrounding them. And their new single ‘D of E’ reflects that shift by replacing youthful urgency with a more patient examination of age, physical decline and the qualities that remain when strength begins to falter.
The second preview of the forthcoming ‘FAMILY’ EP, the song takes its working title from guitarist Graeme Baverstock’s eldest daughter completing her Silver Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. That small domestic detail provides an understated starting point for a track concerned with much larger journeys. Mountains, trails, changing seasons and an oak beside a river become ways of considering how people endure the passage of time.
Musically, ‘D of E’ continues the darker, more spacious direction established by their previous work. Twin guitars build patiently around a restrained opening, while the arrangement gathers weight without forcing an immediate climax. The Race understand that the subject requires room, and instead of placing every emotion at the surface, they allow tension to accumulate gradually before the song’s more expansive passages provide a measured sense of release.
Having first formed in Reading in 2004, The Race spent their initial run recording two albums, touring extensively and appearing at venues and festivals across the UK and Europe. And their reunion comes from musicians who already understand one another’s instincts, now returning with different lives and more complicated reasons for making music.
There are echoes of the emotional scale associated with The National, Doves and Editors, particularly in the combination of shadowed verses and rising guitar-led passages. Yet the maturity of the subject prevents those influences from becoming the main point of reference. The Race are most convincing when they focus on the specific circumstances of their return and the experiences that could not have informed their earlier records.
In all, ‘D of E’ recognises that endurance can be accompanied by frailty, and that watching someone age involves gratitude, admiration and fear in almost equal measure.
By placing those complicated feelings inside a steadily unfolding indie-rock arrangement, The Race offer a thoughtful second chapter to their return. ‘D of E’ finds them no longer writing simply about where life might lead, but about the people who helped make the journey possible, and what it means to watch them continue along the path.