[Cover photo credit to We Are Scientists]
Brooklyn-based Indie Rock band We Are Scientists recently shared “What You Want Is Gone,” the third single from their upcoming album, Qualifying Miles, out July 18, 2025 via Groenland Records. They also recently announced an album release show Brooklyn’s Union Pool (484 Union Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211) on July 30th, 2025. Qualifying Miles explores themes of “loss, memory, and the half-haunting pull of the past.”
The new track is “a nod to 2000s indie ballads” while lyrics carry a sense of hope and regret in the repeating lyric: “You can’t just wait around for what you want / if what you want is gone.”
On the track, Keith Murray says:
I spent a lot of my early songwriting career celebrating the benefits of total passivity. A bunch of songs off of our first album, like ‘Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt,’ ‘The Great Escape,’ and ‘Inaction,’ are essentially manifestos on my overarching emotional philosophy back then, which was basically that, in life, it wasn’t really the destination or the journey, but rather the tension just before the journey begins that was most delicious.
Well, it only took me like 20 years to realize that young Keith was kind of an idiot. I mean, I guess I did know that then, too. but I was simply more willing to indulge that idiocy. Plus, I was drinking with Chris Cain [bassist] at Lit Lounge in Manhattan like six nights a week, so my decision-making skills were low. I’m still a coward, yes, and I’m still fairly risk-averse, but I now at least believe that shooting your shot while you’ve still got the chance is a laudatory move. I probably should’ve been listening to more self-help podcasts, all this time.
The accompanying video is made up of live and tour footage, showing the band in their element. The band invited fans on their recent EU tour to share video footage of the song’s first live performances and combined it with their own behind-the-scenes content.
Upcoming album Qualifying Miles is a return to the music that shaped the band’s childhoods, particularly ‘90s guitar music. It follows two previous self-produced albums Huffy (2021) and Lobes (2023), which embraced experimentation with studio production and expanded sonic palettes.
