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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteThe Head and the Heart’s sixth studio album, Aperture, arrived May 9, 2025. In a May 5 interview with The Current, vocalist and guitarist John Russell and pianist Kenny Hensley described a record made through renewed collaboration and self-production, guided by a theme they summed up as “letting the light in.”
How the band made Aperture
Verve Forecast describes Aperture as the band’s first self-produced album since its self-titled 2011 debut. The label says the group spent a year recording across Seattle and Richmond, its twin home bases. The album was released May 9, 2025. Verve Forecast’s release announcement provides the official details.
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![Aperture[LP]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41zxQDdnCpL._SL160_.jpg)
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Aperture[LP] | $30.03 | Buy on Amazon |
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BTX Head & The Heart & Aperture Record Set | $71.07 | Buy on Amazon |
In the interview, Russell said the band was working without a record-deal timeline or outside direction prescribing when songs should be finished or what the album should sound like. Hensley described a process in which members wrote in smaller combinations, then brought promising ideas to the full group. That approach let songs take shape in a close exchange before being developed together in the studio.
How “After The Setting Sun” took shape
Hensley said he and Matty Gervais began “After The Setting Sun” during several days of writing in Seattle in early 2024. The idea came together quickly from Gervais’s chords, which Hensley learned on piano. Gervais later added lyrics and melodies; they then brought a demo to the rest of the band to complete in the studio. The account offers a concrete example of the smaller-group writing process Hensley described. Read The Current’s interview with Russell and Hensley.
#1 Best Overall
- "Sun was made for coming out, even though the night is long
What the title Aperture means to the band
The record’s title became a way to describe openness and agency. In the label’s release announcement, Matty Gervais said: “For me, Aperture represents the choice we all must make between resigning ourselves to darkness, or letting the light in and recognizing our own agency to do so.”
Hensley described the idea’s place in the album’s creation in The Current interview: “Letting the world in, letting the light in, became a major theme in the creation of this.” The two statements frame the title not simply as an image, but as a choice that runs through the making of the record.
Gervais also called the title song “an invitation to wake up in the present moment recognizing that it is all we have, in all its contradictions of beauty and pain, joy and despair, unfathomable vastness and impermanence.” The label’s announcement identifies “Beg Steal Borrow” as the album’s focus track, while the title song closes the track list.
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- Your favorite artist, Head & The Heart, on LP Vinyl.
Aperture track list
The official album announcement lists 12 tracks in this order:
- “After The Setting Sun”
- “Time With My Sins”
- “Arrow”
- “Beg Steal Borrow”
- “Cop Car”
- “Blue Embers”
- “Fire Escape”
- “Pool Break”
- “Jubilee”
- “West Coast”
- “Finally Free”
- “Aperture”
Available physical editions
The band’s official store documents two physical formats. The Blue Ember color-in-color single LP is described as a limited, exclusive variant; its listing showed sold-out status when accessed, so current stock and price should be checked on the store page. The store also lists a standard CD.
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