The much anticipated second album from Denver-based Tennis, "Young and Old," is set for release February 14, 2012 on Fat Possum Records. Their widely praised debut "Cape Dory," which The Wall Street Journal called "a winsome set of breezy pop songs," was released earlier this year. For their forthcoming album guitarist Patrick Riley, vocalist Aliana Moore and drummer James Barone headed to Nashville to work with The Black Keys' Patrick Carney. The first single from these sessions, "Origins," will be released on limited edition on blue 7" vinyl on December 6 via Forest Family Records. Over the last few months, Tennis has also released a series of covers as free downloads including "Is It True" by Brenda Lee and their take of "Tell Her No" by The Zombies. To support the new 7" and road rehearse new songs, the band will embark on a December run of west coast dates with The Miniature Tigers supporting. See below for more information. 

After the success of their first album and touring for the better part of a year that included shows as far away as Moscow, Riley and Moore returned home and realized what was initially a bedroom-recording project had quickly evolved into a band. The challenge of a second record was upon them, but songwriting came quickly and in three months the duo had most of the material for their new album. The goal this time was to mature and vary their sound. Riley describes the new direction as "Stevie Nicks going through a Motown phase." By the time they hooked up with Carney, they had fleshed out most of the songs that would comprise "Young and Old." With their friend and mentor at the producer helm, the recording progressed naturally and within three weeks the album was done. While their debut was written with a third touring member in mind, the new album is written and recorded with the addition of a fourth. 

Tennis was born of Riley and Moore's nearly seven-month sailing trip, which consisted of selling all their possessions, purchasing an old sailboat, repairing it, and cruising up and down the eastern seaboard. Upon returning home, the duo began writing music together as a way to document the history of their shared experience. The result was "Cape Dory," an intimate and concise recollection of life on a 30-foot sloop. Tennis received more than 50 thousand listens to the free tracks they posted online and was promptly signed to Fat Possum Records. 

Since the release of their sophmore album Young and Old, the band has performed on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and “Last Call with Carson Daly”. Young and Old, out now on Fat Possum Records, debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Heatseeker Chart, #1 on CMJ Top 200, where it remained for three weeks in a row and topped Soundscans “New Artist Chart” for nine consecutive weeks after debuting at #1. Their music has been featured in television programs “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Revenge” and “The Secret Circle” and is featured in Tory Burch and Marc Jacobs online promotions. Tennis will make their KCRW “Morning Becomes Eclectic” premiere in May. 

If Tennis’ debut album, Cape Dory, was a narrative of a specific time and sensation, the Denver group’s follow-up, Young and Old, is its antithesis. The new disc, recorded in Nashville with Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney, embraces a grander landscape of ideas and feelings, revealing a riskier, looser version of the band.

Cape Dory, released in January of 2011, chronicled a sailing voyage embarked upon by band members and married couple Patrick Riley and Alaina Moore, who met while in college in Denver, and was never intended to be shared. Young and Old, in some ways a reaction to its predecessor, represents the first time Riley and Moore have penned tracks that are meant for those outside themselves. “We wrote Cape Dory almost by accident and after playing those 10 songs over and over for ten months we knew exactly what we wanted to be playing onstage each night,” Moore says. “We were compelled right away to write this new record and it came very quickly. This is the first time we wrote songs for the sake of sharing them and performing them for other people.”

Many of the tracks that appear on Young and Old were written while the band, which also includes drummer James Barone, toured on their debut. Parts were imagined during soundchecks in venues across the country and great thought was put into how the new numbers would translate onstage. Riley and Moore solidified the tracks in May and, along with Barone, spent nine days recording with Carney in August at Haptown Studio—the first time any of the band members had worked with an actual producer.

“We felt like we were doing one thing well and we wanted to expand sonically,” Moore says. “We wanted someone with a dirty, bluesy rock background, someone who was the opposite of our sound to help lend an edge to our music. We felt like Patrick would able to handle our songs well and he did.” Riley adds, “Patrick really channeled our ideas in the best way possible.”

The resulting album retains Tennis’ sparkling indie pop aesthetic, but expands the sonic and thematic elements to include a greater range of styles and ideas. Although Young and Old isn’t a concept album in the way Cape Dory was, this record, which takes its title from a William Butler Yeats poem called “A Woman Young and Old,” finds cohesion even as it expands what the group has previously done. “I didn’t want each song to be in complete

isolation from the next,” Moore says. “I wanted them to belong together. I felt like I’d done a lot of reflection personally while spending months on the road contemplating the transition I had made over the past year. I feel like each song is a vignette, a glimpse into a personal moment of mine spanning from childhood to womanhood.”

“My Better Self,” a song that inspired Moore to pen the other lyrics for the album, is dulcet and introspective, a hushed pop number that showcases the more intimate side of the band while “Petition,” a bluesy, exuberant tune, offers an opposing, kickier sensibility. “It All Feels the Same,” the disc’s delicately propulsive opener, marries the band’s past with their current freer playing philosophy. “It’s maybe one of the oldest songs we have musically, but it took a totally different turn in the studio,” Riley notes. “It was a nice taste of what’s to come. The idea of writing something so long ago that takes a shape you’d never thought of.”

In the end, Young and Old doesn’t so much tell a story as it does chronicle an evolution. It reveals a growing sense of liberation, of musicians coming into their own together. Its melodies are enchanting yet it’s all infused with an edgier tone than Tennis’ debut, a logical next step in the band’s career. “We aim to always be moving forward,” Riley says. “We’re always reaching toward the next song. It may feel distant but the more we work at it the closer it gets. That goal is always to reach it.”