In 2024, acclaimed instrumental post-rock band If These Trees Could Talk released a single, “Trail of Whispering Giants”, the group’s first new music in eight years, and fans clamored for more. The wait is now over with “The Hidden Hand”, a new studioalbum of nine stellar, provocative songs set for release on July 10th, 2026, through Metal Blade Records.
As drummer and band-co-founder Zack Kelly explains: “The If These Trees Could Talk experience feels like a slow, wordless conversation between the inner and outer world best consumed like the score to a cinematic picture or a space for meditation, healing, and clarity.
“This release means a lot to me not only spiritually but emotionally”, Kelly, who co-founded the band with drummer-brother Cody Kelly in 2005, continues. “There were a lot of up-and-downs during the making of this album and the journey took longer than anticipated, but the end goal is to make music that holds an emotional imprint, and I hope we have succeeded”.
“The Hidden Hand” offers the same range of dark and ambient landscapes as the band’s previous offerings but also brings a feeling of resolution. “As we all get older and our musical tastes evolve, it’s more of a challenge to keep the sound of the band in a specific lane and not venture too far away from where we originally started”.
If These Trees Could Talk focuses on capturing sonic power, utilizing the three guitars to cover different areas of the spectrum. Kelly elaborates: “It’s almost the same way an orchestra would be set up with the bass guitar covering cello, the rhythm guitars holding down the woodwind section and the lead guitarist covering the strings section. No matter who comes up with a riff or where it starts, the end product must always have these three components present especially when transitioning from clean to heavy tones”.
Longtime fans and newcomers alike will thrill to the album’s stunning first single, “Blurry Creatures”. Kelly notes: “The track embodies the raw nature of the If These Trees Could Talk sound by incorporating unrelenting riffs with epic highs and lows, ambient syncopated delays and a battle chant that stimulates the senses”.
Watch the band’s entrancing visualizer for “Blurry Creatures” below.
“The Hidden Hand” will be released on CD and digital formats as well as vinyl in the following color variants:
• Lava Red Marble (US)
• Solar Flare Marble (US)
• Purple Galaxy Marble (US)
• 180g Black (EU – Ltd. 1000)
• Tropical Sunset Marble (Orange/Purple/White) (EU – Ltd. 500)
• Orange Oxblood Merged (EU – Ltd. 250)
Find preorders here.
Tracklist:
1. Archons
2. Moon Machine
3. Sea of Glass
4. Blurry Creatures
5. Silence Between Mountains, Pt. 1
6. Silence Between Mountains, Pt. 2
7. Metanoia
8. Flim
9. Endlessly Connected
Line-up:
Cody Kelly – Guitar
Zack Kelly – Drums
Tom Fihe – Bass guitar
Jeff Kalal – Guitar
Mike Socrates – Guitar
Weblinks:
www.facebook.com/treescouldtalk
www.instagram.com/ifthesetreescouldtalk
