On the highly anticipated follow up to 2014’s ‘HEAL’, bandleader Tim Showalter is caught between his hedonistic pursuit of rock ‘n’ roll transcendence and the mature demands of domestic life. With help from producer Nicolas Vernhes (The War on Drugs, Spoon), ‘Hard Love’ harnesses Showalter’s un­relenting energy and channels it into nine of the most incendiary, ambitious songs in Strand Of Oaks’ discography.

Drawing from his love of Creation Records, Trojan dub compilations, and Jane's Addiction, and informed by a particularly wild time at Australia's Boogie Festival, he sought to create a record that would merge all of these influences while evoking something new and visceral. These influences coupled with an uninhibited and collaborative studio experience moved an initial concept for a singularly feel-good record to something more complex and real. As much as Showalter wants this record to seem like a party, it's more than that. It feels like
living. “You went away…you went searching…came back tired of looking” is how Showalter begins the title track, a sentiment that epitomizes Showalter's own mentality in beginning ‘Hard Love’. As the record progresses, so do the themes of dissatisfaction and frustration with love, family, success, and aging, both in personal experience and song writing.