In a return styled somewhere between that of the prodigal son and Lazarus, Frog are back with a brand new record that looks to push further into the bizarre present. Again facilitated by the heroic Audio Antihero, Whatever We Probably Already Had It is a collection of eight songs that displays something of a streamlined sound, dropping some of the excess baggage of previous releases to form a more direct feel. Coupled with Bateman’s trademark manic delivery, the effect is one of impatient immediacy, a live album born not of mass rehearsals and celebratory tours but rather the urgent and natural emergence of voices to air.

We’re lucky enough to be able to share the latest single from the record, and the theme and title of the track just so happen to be gloriously apt. ‘American’ is something of a primer for the rest of the album, pitching the listener into a familiarly Frogian (amphibian?) world where every person is caught somewhere between laughing and crying. Bateman’s narrator, who may or may not be Bateman himself, exists in such a paradox, a prisoner locked between the unstoppable force of self-deprecation and the immovable object of the American Dream. The result is as clever and multifaceted as anything Frog have done, and the sense of fractured conflict within the lyrics is as timely as it is funny—a song for the exceptional, ridiculous, transcendent despair of every card-carrying American.

“O yes
God bless the USA
I’m OK
Call the paramedics
Call a priest, call Fedex
I’m a beast, I’m pretty
Fuck with me?
Forgot it”

Photo by Andrew Piccone, cover art by Artwork by Benjamin Shaw w/ photo by Alex Coppola

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