Elway Goes Deep on New Album

At long last, after eighteen years, Elway put out a politically charged protest record.

But the latest from the Fort Collins-born indie-punk crew — Nobody’s Going To Heaven, released on October 10 via Chicago label Red Scare Industries — isn’t as obviously in-your-face as you’d assume from a genre known for telling Nazi punks to fuck off. It’s a more nuanced approach, with political undertones that highlight the chaos and carnage surrounding the Western world, while still offering an optimistic outlook overall.

Original vocalist-guitarist Tim Browne didn’t necessarily set out to make a record fueled by such fire and fury that went into Nobody’s Going To Heaven initially, and considers it “an indignant dispatch from within the walls of the crumbling empire.” It occurred naturally, he shares; he had no choice but to reflect on what he believes will ultimately lead to a “post-American world.”

“We’ve not really been historically a very political band,” Browne says. “There are some songs about politics, but generally, I’ve tried to avoid it just because I feel like it’s really easy to slide into tropes and platitudes. I’ve always been hesitant about writing about politics and tread lightly when I do.

“But over the past five years, American politics, I started to become acutely aware of how much oxygen it takes up in my life,” he continues. “Reading about it and then just progressively becoming more disillusioned with things. I just had to write what was taking up the most brain space in my life. … If you’re just trying to write what you know and all you know is doomscrolling on your phone and watching the world pretty nakedly falling apart, you’re going to eventually write about it.”

Take previously released singles — “Laugh Track” and “Down The Lane And Far Away” — which deal with the rippling effects of war, particularly the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the current war in Gaza, and how humanity is becoming increasingly disconnected from the natural world, and by extension, each other.

“The overall idea I mean to convey is I think that there is an inevitable way that this is going to end for the American polity and the West writ large, and I don’t think it’s going to bode well for us,” Browne explains.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, in his opinion.

“I wanted to write it in such a way that conveys a sense of hope that there’s a world to win still and that the ways that we’ve grown up, the politics of my youth and our present, is kind of destined for failure,” he continues. “That’s ultimately going to be something that is good, even if it’s not necessarily good for us as the chubby-cheeked beneficiaries of capital and empire here in the United States.”

These are certainly gloomy topics to consider, but Elway, which was once sued by its Hall of Fame namesake, delivers such hypotheses with the swooning melodic emo indie-rock that’s been the band’s calling card since 2007. The satirically titled Nobody’s Going To Heaven is about coming together, more than anything. And Browne bassist Joe Henderer, drummer William Orender and guitarist Brian Van Proyen invite all to do just that during the group’s release show on Friday, November 7, at Skylark Lounge. Local openers Gila Teen and Hooper are also on the bill.

Browne, well-spoken and articulate, recites a quote by Italian Marxist philosopher and political theorist Antonio Gramsci that underpins his mindset when writing these eleven songs: “I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”

That’s easier said than done, he admits. “Living Epilogue,” an exclamation point of a closer, conveys the sentiment beautifully, including a poignant lyric video that features contrasting images of a serene sunbird, the war-torn ruins of Palestine, the fall of the Axis powers and current political leaders. “Old guards will die with nobody around to say goodbye,” Browne sings.

The song, paired with the visual, is enough to give the conscious goosebumps. Even if nobody is going to heaven after all of this, Elway is doing its best to inspire us to make it right, build a better future, now.  

“I want to be, at the end of the day, optimistic about the direction things are going, and it’s very difficult,” Browne says.

“It’s tough to find that hope some days because not only are horrible things afoot and we see this country further recede into fascism with each passing day, but also we’re meant to live inside of this cyclical outrage machine that nonstop pumps divisive, salacious material into our algorithm so we’re constantly fighting and feeling more and more divisive and angry and indignant toward one another and ourselves every single day,” he concludes. “Finding a way to be optimistic in that is its own sort of quiet act of defiance that I struggle with every single day.”

Elway, with Gila Teen and Hooper, 8 p.m. Friday, November 7, Skylark Lounge, 140 South Broadway. Tickets are $15-$20.