TOPS share another look at their forthcoming new album, Bury the Key, due for release on August 22 via Ghostly International.

Approaching the album’s midpoint, latest single ‘Annihilation’ is the proper heel-turn. It surfaced from a non-traditional exercise; Fleck was challenged to draft a song from the drums, yielding a field of rapid hi-hats, fills, and four-on-the-floor beats for the band to build on. Written shortly after the deaths of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Sinead O’Connor, it’s an homage to a cultural mythology that’s slowly vanishing (“all the greatest men and women die my friend”) with the sleek, futuristic chorus nodding to Yellow Magic Orchestra.

“’Annihilation’ is a song about navigating a world on the edge of collapse” the band comment. “It’s easy to fear the future but in the end nothing is ever finished and you just gotta follow your heart. It’s like a mix of complacency and surrendering.”