For Urban Cone — four high-school friends from a Stockholm suburb — creating irresistibly catchy, emotionally resonant music that has the potential to connect with fans all over the world is all they’ve ever wanted. Formed in 2010, Urban Cone has enjoyed substantial success in their native Sweden with their debut album, 2013’s Our Youth, and 2015’s Polaroid Memories, which was also released in the US.

During their summer U.S. tour, Urban Cone began coming up with ideas for their upcoming third album, which will be released by Interscope Records/Universal Sweden. Vocalist/keyboardist Rasmus Flyckt and vocalist/bassist Emil Gustafsson had written and produced Urban Cone’s music themselves and this time they wanted to take a different approach. The songs on the new album are anchored by harder, hip-hop-influenced beats and funky guitars, while retaining those sparkling melodies that Swedish music-makers seem to conjure up so effortlessly.

Urban Cone’s newfound lyrical transparency is a direct result of the bonded friendship these four young men enjoy. “I feel like we’ve never been closer as a group,” says Rasmus. “Everyone has been going through difficult things, like ending long-term relationships, and we’ve been writing songs during this time. We've had a dialogue, and I think that you can hear that in our new lyrics. We have opened up a lot. We want every song to matter. On our last album, you can hear that we're friends. On this new one, you can hear that we’re family.”