Matthew Sweet - Tomorrow's Daughter (2018) [Hi-Res]

Matthew Sweet had a head start for his new album, Tomorrow's Daughter, whose opening track and first single "I Belong to You" is premiering below.

Sweet wrote and did most of the recording for the dozen songs on the set, which comes out May 18, while making last year's expansive Tomorrow Forever. "It's really, like, a deeper dive into the sessions that made Tomorrow Forever," the Nebraska-based Sweet tells Billboard. "At the time I was finalizing that record I took all of these other songs I really liked and made it into this album. I didn't know if I'd get to release it right away or what, but I just liked the way they fell together." Sweet likens the project to the 1994 EP Son Of Altered Beast but notes that "this is more of a real record. It's a whole 12 songs that seemed to hold together and be their own fresh thing."

"I Belong to You" kicks the new album off in a manner that will sound familiar to fans of Sweet's particular brand of riffy power pop. "It's a very signature to me kind of song -- it's poppy and upbeat and pledging love and all of that," Sweet says. "Everybody liked it when I was making Tomorrow Forever, so it was high up in my thoughts." There's more of that on Tomorrow's Daughter, too, though the album does have the "wide range of things" Sweet also likes to pursue.

"I do like those poppy, jangly, happy things," he says. "I'm always hoping I'll have some stuff like that 'cause it's fun and has a sound to it. But I know it can get tedious. So there's lots of the more morose kinds of things I do, too!"

Sweet and his band will start playing North American dates during May, formally launching the Tomorrow's Daughter Tour on June 13 in Alexandria, VA. Meanwhile, he has other musical projects on the docket -- including new two-LP vinyl editions of Girlfriend, Altered Beast/Son Of Altered Beast and 100% Fun, each with extensive new liner notes, that will come out later in the year. "When we toured for Tomorrow Forever last year we were selling out of our vinyl copies every night and a lot of people were bringing vinyl for me to sign, so that's pretty exciting," Sweet says. "I think these are going to be really special for fans. Just as an object vinyl feels like work, y'know? That's what I had when I was young. I missed that."

Sweet will also have some new material out later this year, for Record Store Black Friday. "It's not really the 'next big album' type of thing," he says. "I just did some recording about a year ago now that we'll put out on vinyl only. It's just a piece for that day. (Tomorrow's Daughter) is the real focus for this year."