Hanson.net has the entire new album up in streaming media. The disc officially drops in three weeks, and I can feel my blood rushing just thinking about it... in the past I haven't really wanted to listen to the new music until I'm holding the CD case in my hands, smelling the new CD smell that I only experience once every three or four years (I really only spend money on their albums), but this time I just couldn't wait anymore.

A few weeks ago my manager told me that she'd never met anyone who loved a band as much as I do, and that they are very lucky. I don't think she realizes how much that statement meant to me. In the past four months I've spent a lot of time in introspection, pulling my heart back into myself in instinctual preservation, but when I think about the history that I have with this band I realize that I really have not forgotten how to deeply love - whether it's them, the idea of them, the experience of them, or just plainly the music and the way it can reach through the air and envelope my heart with just one opening note.

I can't sit still as I play the new music - with every beat I can feel their excruciating passion and it literally moves me. They are the epitome of it, of that shameless passion... as I've been continually mellowing out this year, feeling myself numb to simply human things like love and intrinsic emotion, they continue to lay their hearts out in the face of oppression from both the industry and the public. The funny thing is that I feel my anger rise when people dismiss them, but they don't even get angry anymore. Not in the same way. Their anger is channeled into their art, and communicated so eloquently - and they just push on with the belief that the music speaks for itself.

And does it. It shouts and screams.

Ten years' worth.