Prelude Press
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The Sheila Divine are back with “I Climbed Inside A Whale“, their first new single of 2026. The track was taken from the band’s upcoming album, upcoming sixth album, The Middle Ages, out May 22nd on Trash Casual. Listen to the song now below.
Aaron Perrino refuses to be beat. The Boston music scene veteran, whose musical endeavors go by The Sheila Divine, has spent decades confounding expectations. From breaking out with the college radio hit “Hum” on the esteemed Roadrunner Records, to achieving cult status in the unlikely Belgian indie rock market, to steadfastly putting out a towering catalog of instantly gripping and uncompromisingly honest songs.
Songs that deftly weave power-punching political criticism amongst mundane daily frustrations, and that expose purest grief alongside deepest love.
In this vein, The Middle Ages is a deeply human document of everyday life, brought to reality at the hand of a songwriter who has spent his adult years transparently trying to make sense of the world. Across ten new tracks Perrino bares his soul and searches his heart in songs that navigate the wide gamut of lived experience: from the wrenching loss of his mother, through parental anxieties for his own children’s wellbeing, to the strains of congested city life, fractured relationships, and rage at what his nation has turned into.
While no stranger to confounding times, (the group’s career traverses the whiplashing political landscapes of Clinton, GW Bush, Obama, and Trump) the sounds on The Middle Ages are perhaps Perrino’s most dangerous and most urgent yet. On display is what he describes as “all of my pissed off Gen X angst about aging, the failure of capitalism, death, heartbreak and what the future holds in the back half of my life where everything is so grim.”
Listeners will feel that angst in the weighty soundscapes and guttural yells of album opener “Gods Of War”, the tense relentlessness of the title track, or the embittered fatigue of “We Once Burned”. There are glimmers of light in the shadows though. “Celebrate The End” finds wonder in loss, “Hurry Up” showcases an anthemic resiliency, and most tellingly “The Apocalypse $ell$” places the refrain “the apocalypse sells, die, die” adjacent to repeated declarations of “Well I have hope”.
As the only constant of The Sheila Divine, collaboration has always been integral to Perrino’s process, and The Middle Ages is no exception. A fresh lineup of Boston scene allies (and occasional past collaborators) features Will Claflin on guitar, Paul Buckley on drums, Andy Rooney on bass, and Steven Lord on guitar. The recordings get dynamic mixing treatment from Wally Gagel (Cold War Kids, Superchunk) and mastering polish from Pete Weiss (Morphine, Juliana Hatfield).
For Perrino, there’s something magical about working with so many people. “The more people that touch it, the more it manifests into something,” he explains. The stakes of that something couldn’t be more heartfelt. As he puts it: “I refuse to live in a world where people trade empathy for apathy, curiosity for cruelty, humility for hubris.”