Movements break down new album 'Happier Now', out now

Movements have released 'Happier Now', their fourth full-length, and frontman Pat Miranda has explained how the record came together in a new conversation with Rock Sound. The starting point, he says, was finding a way to bridge the gap between fans of the band's recent material and those who connected with the earlier records.

Miranda acknowledges that 'Ruckus!' proved polarising for part of the fanbase, but insists that was deliberate. Coming out of the pandemic and off an album he feels never got its moment, the band wanted to get people talking again. For the new record, the answer was pairing that same energy with the emotionality of their early output.

The years since have been difficult on a personal level, and that fed directly into the writing. Miranda says he didn't expect every song to head in that direction, and that the process became a realisation that he was carrying more than he had been letting on. That is where the title came from, something he describes as both a statement and a question, deliberately at odds with what listeners might assume from the phrase.

He also points out that he is far better equipped to handle those places now than he was around 'Feel Something'. Mental health, he says, is never linear, and there will always be new struggles, but he intends to keep being honest about how he feels in the songs. Some future records may bring happier material, others darker.

Movements have never shied away from that emotional openness, and Miranda considers 'No Good Left To Give' the saddest album in their catalogue.