JULY 15 : WITH THE COLORADO SYMPHONY, PLUS SPECIAL GUEST EVAN HONER

JULY 16 : CELEBRATING 15 YEARS OF THE DEBUT ALBUM, PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS WILDERADO

As The Head and the Heart toured behind their 2022 album, Every Shade of Blue, Jonathan Russell realized something needed to change inside the band he had cofounded a dozen years earlier: the entire songwriting process. At the start of the last decade, with their self-titled debut, they’d instantly bloomed at the fertile intersection of indie rock and folk-rock like some rare flower. Their massive harmonies and pulsing arrangements suggested a cadre of old friends, working together to share some new emotional burden—a band, really.

Aperture—The Head and the Heart’s sixth album —is the affirming result of that realization. After working with a string of marquee producers on their previous three albums, the six members took the lessons they’d learned into studios in Seattle and Richmond, patiently shaping and self-producing a record that satisfied no one but themselves. More important, though, they tossed out the codex that dictated who did what. After leading so much of the songwriting during the last decade, Russell ceded that role to everyone, shooing away siloed work for a highly collaborative approach where everyone hatched tunes together in a room or passed ideas between coasts. Some members wrote and sang for the first time; others redoubled their commitments and contributions. More than any other record ever by The Head and the Heart, Aperture feels like the work of a real band, made giddy by the process of once again sharing some emotional load. With every song fortified by the sense of beginning again, Aperture is The Head and the Heart’s most vital and poignant album. It is the best work they’ve ever done.