Time very much sounds better on the Van Pelt’s impressionistic punk music today, as the seminal indie rockers return 26 years since their last release with Artisans & Merchants. On its second preview, “Image of Health”, their lived-worn wisdom is wrinkled into Chris Leo’s clear-eyed view of life half a century in. “The image of health / Is whatever ailment isn’t / It takes inventory daily / And sees that most of him is living / The image of health / Is what the ailment is / An entering conversation / Where the killer is also him,“ he states, almost poetically over a slow crash crescendo of riffs before the tides of tomorrow hit, have you washed, but weathered for the better.

The Van Pelt’s Artisans & Merchants will be released March 17th on Gringo Records / La Castanya / Spartan Records.