Murder By Death with special guest AJJ

Murder by Death
 

Murder by Death has earned a much needed break. The 25 years the band has spent on the road have been catching up to them lately, so they’ve decided to take a step back from touring before it grinds them to dust. This year, they’ll be embarking on a massive farewell tour, hitting more than 50 cities in the US, UK, and Canada. And as their parting gift, they are leaving behind their tenth album, Egg & Dart.

“The album is basically an elegy,” frontman Adam Turla explains. “The songs are about goodbyes and the different ways we think about that concept.” And while Turla has often spun yarn about fictional sinners and tragic tales in the band’s albums, the themes of Egg & Dart hit a bit closer to home than usual. “It’s certainly our most personal collection of songs. It’s probably our saddest and most beautiful album, but it also has moments of real triumph and joy in the darkness.”

Themes of loss and endings run throughout Egg & Dart, which was recorded in early 2025 by producer Kevin Ratterman. The phrases “goodbye,” “farewell,” and “so long” appear across several tracks. “Lose You” describes a personal loss beyond one’s own control. “It’s about the people in your life that you are very worried about and that you’re not sure if they're going to make it. It’s about that feeling of anxiety around not having control,” Turla says. On “Letter to the Editor,” he reflects on the idea of letting go of the anger that builds when a trust has been broken. In this case, it’s a break-up song with a newspaper. And on “Sorry,” Turla sings, “It has come our time to part, for I can only give you half my heart / To carry on would be unkind / I love you, I’m sorry, and goodbye.”

Murder by Death has accomplished more than they’d ever dreamed since forming in Bloomington, Indiana, in 2000, when Turla and cellist Sarah Balliet started the project with fellow college dorm-mates under the name Little Joe Gould. They traveled the world several times over, released ten studio albums, built an intensely dedicated following, shared stages with artists from a wide array of genres, brought live music to the famed Stanley Hotel where they established an annual residency, and became accidental Kickstarter pioneers. They’ve undergone one name change, a few member departures, and have navigated a music scene that has drastically transitioned in the two decades of their tenure. But most importantly, they’ve earned it all themselves. In an industry where the words “indie” and “DIY” have been reduced to meaningless buzzwords, the band has always remained true to their roots and run an incredibly hands-on operation built on transparency and loyalty.

Chalk it up to their misleadingly macabre name or their amorphous style of rock that rides along the outskirts of several disparate genres without firmly settling into any of them, but Murder by Death has never fit neatly into any music industry boxes. A radio hit has never flooded them with commercial success, nor have they gotten much love from major music press outlets, who have historically either misunderstood the band or ignored them all together. They’ve avoided trends and dodged fads at every opportunity. But despite years of going against the grain, they’ve managed to find their people. Murder by Death may have avoided aligning with any scene, but they instead built their own community entirely.

And while the band may be shutting down the machine that has powered their operation for so many years, they will not be leaving that community for good. Although Murder by Death won’t be touring, they’re still planning to continue their beloved annual cave shows at the Caverns in Pelham, Tennessee, as a yearly opportunity to stay in touch with an audience that has been so supportive. But as far as more new music from Murder by Death goes, the path is less certain. “We have toured relentlessly for 25 years and it’s just time to end that chapter,” Turla says. “I don’t know what the future is for us after this, but we knew that we wanted to make this one last album together and just put everything we had into it.”