[Cover photo credit to Larry Ratner]

An originally Bay Area band operative since the early 2000s, The Heavenly States relocated to Austin, TX, in 2010, with members now split between Austin and Atlanta. Today, the Alt-Rock outfit has returned with new single, “Fifth of July,” out July 25, 2025, via LBM Recordings.

Led by core songwriters Genevieve Gagon (keys, violin, vocals) and Ted Nesseth (guitar, vocals), the group is joined by the Austin talent of John Olrech and Erik Grostic on bass, and Danny Piccuirro and Jason Toll on drums. Their new work is “a document of musicians who’ve witnessed Austin’s cultural transformation firsthand, before, during, and after its evolution.”

With their new single “Fifth of July,” the band delivers a New Wave-tinged song that they call a “day-after danse macabre.” They offer their own perspective of the American holiday.

The band explains:

It is late in the game, and it can’t be fixed so it will be described. On a celebrated day of freedom, insouciant, flaccid desire has scoured the landscape and defecated carpets of plastic across our lawns. Over feasts, they speak of wins, conquests, trips, excellences.  For fun tonight they will watch slaughter on TV. We’re setting the picnic table, setting the stage, a red flag for what we call “freedom.”