BIG STIR RECORDS presents a very special new album from power pop legends THE SPONGETONES, celebrating the band's illustrious past, their live onstage present, and the promise of future recordings yet to come: THE 40th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT... AND BEYOND. Featuring 18 live tracks from the band's rapturously-received 2021 homestate gig, drawing from all four decades of the Power Pop Hall Of Famers' catalog, as well as three brand new studio tracks released as singles this year, it's a comprehensive look at what makes THE SPONGETONES so beloved... and a cornucopia of hooks and harmonies for the ages. The album is out August 15 on CD and Streaming worldwide, and is up for pre-order and pre-save now:

https://orcd.co/spongetones-40beyond

THE SPONGETONES likely need no introduction to our audience: singer-songwriters JAMIE HOOVER (guitar), STEVE STOECKEL (bass) and PAT WALTERS (guitar) have been crafting, recording and performing neo-classics in the British Invasion mold together since well before their iconic 1982 debut album BEAT MUSIC. Their induction into the Power Pop Hall Of Fame might have been assured by that album, ranked as the #13 genre album of all in John M. Borack's authoritative guidebook Shake Some Action, and the equally-beloved TORN APART EP (1984), between them featuring the essential oft-anthologized classics like “She Goes Out With Everybody,” “My Girl Maryanne,” and “Have You Ever Been Torn Apart?” – just to cite a song apiece from the band's three world-class creative forces. But the band's catalog extends well into the '90s and 2000s, with a series of terrific albums and frequent live shows in their native North Carolina and beyond cementing their reputation not only as guitar pop progenitors, but some of its finest present day practitioners as well.

All of which brings us to August 14, 2021, at Charlotte’s McGlohon Theatre and the band, by then including longtime drummer CHRIS GARGES, taking the stage for a pandemic-delayed sold-out show drawing from their entire four-decade career, and offering definitive proof for those in attendance that the band belongs among the greats. Fans in the audience – and perhaps even more so, those who couldn't attend – began asking two questions in equal measure: might the show materialize as the long-awaited career-spanning live album? And, inevitably, would there be new music from The Spongetones, or was this a farewell performance?

The new album answers both those questions with a resounding and appropriate “Oh Yeah!” – and it's all here on one disc. The surprise rollout began in May with the announcement, release, and embrace on global indie radio of the first new Spongetones studio track since 2009's Scramble Eggs album: the Stoeckel-penned “Lulu's In Love,” a fresh update of the band's signature sound and a joy to hear on the airwaves. It was followed in recent weeks by the equally pure pop perfection of “Help Me Janie” with the spotlight on Hoover. And before the new album hits record stores, Walters will get his turn on lead vocals with the absolutely delightful “Honest Work”, completing a trilogy of singles that point to way toward a bright future for The Spongetones in their fifth decade as a band, with new drummer ERIC WILLHELM providing the beat for this new harvest of beat music.

The three new studio tracks shine at the end of the main event showcased on THE 40th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT... AND BEYOND. Anyone concerned that this crucial live performance might be lost to history need not have worried: captured from the soundboard by Daniel Hodges and personally mixed by the band's Jamie Hoover, the tracks here sparkle with clarity and capture the energy of a band firing on all cylinders. Longtime drummer CHRIS GARGES positively shines bringing so much of the Spongetones songbook to life in one of his final performances – he would pass away just months after the show, and the album is lovingly dedicated to his memory.

The setlist includes the evergreen early classics mentioned earlier along with the 1980 debut single “Better Take It Easy” and four more gems from the first album: “Here I Go Again,” “Every Night Is A Holiday,” “Where Were You Last Night?” and “Don't You Know?” There are also rousing renditions of “Must Be Lust” from 2008's Too Clever By Half and “She'll Be Gone” from 2009's Scrambled Eggs, both released since the then-career-summarizing “Best Of” collection Always Carry On in 2005. Together, the new singles and a clutch of '90s and early-21st century gems like “Not So,” “The One That Gets You” and the perhaps-definitively-anthemic “Oh Yeah!” combine to make a solid argument that THE 40th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT... AND BEYOND just might be the definitive document of THE SPONGETONES both onstage and as a songwriting collective.

It also explicitly points the way forward for these North Carolina champions of the power pop sound. After all, what better way to celebrate the release of a live album than with another concert? And what can one do after a trio of super-strong and successful new singles but begin writing and recording more? The band is now a fixture on a combined roster that included fellow Power Pop Hall Of Famers The Flashcubes, Splitsville, and 20/20, and like those genre titans, THE SPONGETONES clearly have more music to share. The best part is, we can guarantee you'll hear it before too long.