After a decade and a half away, Crooked Fingers — the long-running project of singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Eric Bachmann — is officially back. The band will release Swet Deth on 27th February 2026, their first album since 2011’s Breaks in the Armor. Alongside the announcement comes the video for lead single “Cold Waves,” featuring harmonies from Mac McCaughan.
Crooked Fingers
The scope and ambition of the new material pulled Bachmann back toward the Crooked Fingers name. Writing initially with another solo record in mind, he quickly found the songs demanding fuller arrangements and a broader emotional range. That shift led him to reconnect with drummer Jeremy Wheatley and pedal-steel player Jon Rauhouse, while also bringing in a cast of guest collaborators including Matt Berninger, Sharon Van Etten, and members of his touring band.
Cold Waves serves as a vibrant reintroduction, lifted by Wheatley’s thunderous percussion and given a power-pop edge through McCaughan’s harmonies. Bachmann describes the song as emerging from a vivid dreamscape: a surreal vision of destruction, longing and entanglement that becomes metaphor for falling in — and out of — love.
The album’s spark can be traced back to a drawing brought home by Bachmann’s son: a green tree growing from a field of tombstones, scythes and crows, annotated with the words “DETH, SWET DETH.” The image unlocked the album’s thematic core — songs about endings, grief and reckoning, but with a surprising sweetness and a grounded sense of renewal.
That spirit threads through the record. Hospital, the track that set the project in motion, features backing vocals from Bachmann’s wife Liz Durrett, while Skylar Gudasz and Avery Leigh Draut lend their voices to other key moments. On From All Ways, Berninger’s calm, understated delivery underscores the emotional conflict at the song’s heart. Van Etten adds electrifying contrast to the synth-driven Haunted, sharpening its pulse and its emotional weight.
Matt Berninger @ Troxy
Though Crooked Fingers has never maintained a fixed lineup or consistent sound, Swet Deth continues the project’s tradition of reinvention. Bachmann’s willingness to push past his own creative hesitations — and to open the songs to other voices — results in one of the most expansive and collaborative albums of his career.
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