After more than a decade of dormancy, Crooked Fingers, the esteemed project of musician Eric Bachmann, is officially making a comeback with a new album, Swet Deth, due out on February 27, 2026. Bachmann felt compelled to revive the moniker because the new songs required far more expansive and intricate arrangements than his recent solo work allowed. To achieve this sonic complexity, he brought back key veterans like Jeremy Wheatley (drums) and Jon Rauhouse (pedal steel), while also collaborating with high-profile guests including Matt Berninger and Sharon Van Etten.
The band has now shared the lead single, “Cold Waves,” which serves as a thrilling reintroduction to Bachmann’s anthemic capabilities and features Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan. The track takes Bachmann’s wry, sensitive attention to the complexities of breaking up and moulds it into a surging piece of power-pop, elevated by McCaughan’s harmonies and forceful drumming.
Explaining the origins of the song, Bachmann offered this dramatic, cinematic account:
I dreamed of a beautiful, colossal, six-winged inamorata rising off the horizon above the ashes of the dying earth; arctic lasers pulsating from her eyes and fire streaming from her fingertips, freezing then melting then freezing everything again in an instant; lighting up the night with death and apocalypse, destroying everything in her path. When I woke I realized I had fallen deeply in love with her, but was worried that it was actually a trap, which – in hindsight – it clearly was.
In addition to Swet Deth, Bachmann and Crooked Fingers are preparing for a 2026 North American tour, with more information to come.
