This Friday, Wild Pink — the NYC-based band fronted by John Ross — will release Still Coming Down, their sixth studio album and strongest offering to-date, via Fire Talk. Today, Wild Pink unveil Still Coming Down’s final advance single and title track alongside an accompanying visual helmed by Wes Sterrs. After battling and beating cancer, and now becoming a father for the first time, Ross’ perspective has hairpin-bent its way into a simpler significance, where creating music is less about the bigger picture, and more about being present in the moment. The sauntering “Still Coming Down” captures Ross’ ability to pinpoint some of the more painful parts of life with an eye on a more hopeful horizon. All’s not lost despite the darkness, as Ross relays “I used to be pure // I just try to be good now,” over guitar from Meg Duffy (of Hand Habits) and Landon George’s fiddle.
“Still Coming Down” is presented alongside the final installment of Still Coming Down’s visual chapters, which have all continued along a lost conspiratorial plot that completes and complexifies the album narrative. In Chapter IV (“Still Coming Down”), the plot reaches an unsettling conclusion.
Ross says of the track:
This is my favorite song on the record right now so I’m glad this one is out today. I love Meg Duffy’s sinewy, slow motion fretless guitar playing and Landon George’s fiddle in the middle. This song isn’t about any one single thing but it’s mostly about my son and feeling overwhelming love.
In support of Still Coming Down, Wild Pink will perform an intimate album release show at Cassette in Queens, New York. The Still Coming Down album release show — presented by Stereogum and Fire Talk — precedes an extensive world tour that will take Wild Pink on the road for the remainder of 2026. A full list of tour dates are below, and all tickets are on sale now.
Wild Pink have been a staple of the indie rock scene for the better part of a decade, and it’s on their sixth album — Still Coming Down — that John Ross cements the voice he’s been steadily honing over the years. Propelled by the witty and ravenous wisdom of 2024’s Dulling the Horns, Ross’ poetic form has only gained traction, as jocular, heartfelt stories pour with a clever and distinctive ease. NFL bros cruise alongside big guys in grocery stores with even bigger tattoos: ghost stories and references from the cinematic haze of movies like Heat, Moneyball and The Town buzz in the background while Ross also points to Waterworld and The Perfect Storm — heroes who wander, looking for answers at the end of the world.
Still Coming Down was recorded in one week in Asheville, NC at the renowned Drop of Sun studios with producer and engineer Alex Farrar (Bnny, Squirrel Flower, Samia). Vocal takes were done in two to three bursts, marking a less laborious process than previous records. “There was not a ton of overthinking,” Ross says. Ross looked back to the grunge bands he was obsessed with as a teen, and found that it sparked a deeper presence with his own voice, both in lyrics and performance. He endeavoured to create an album that is as fun to play live as it is for the audience to witness, harkening back to the enthusiasm and motivation he felt growing up. “Strangely, I feel like I’ve found my voice on this record,” he says.
Still Coming Down is a storied expedition that welcomes in the drifters and the kids kicking up dust; the brokenhearted and the cursed; the ones looking for an answer and the ones who simply couldn’t care less. Ross gives movement to the characters in our heads, the faces we see every few years and the ones who pass us by. It’s proper rock meant to be played loud, with your hand out the car window, riding the air as you bound down some highway in the early hours.
Forming soon-to-be-classics that soak in their ability to impact without unnecessary frills, Still Coming Down is about the very nature of songwriting and instinct, learning to trust the process and staying open to the lessons you might learn along the way.
PREORDER / PRESAVE STILL COMING DOWN
Keep your mind open.
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[Thanks to Tom at Terrorbird Media.]