The indie-pop duo drops “12 Blown Tires,” announces final album and farewell tour, and somehow makes van trouble poetic
Somewhere on the side of the I-40, just outside Houston, Tennis watched their trailer go bust for the fourth time in a row. Tire remnants were strewn across the bitumen. Twelve of them, to be exact. And while most of us would call roadside assist and swear off life on tour, Alaina Moore did what indie-pop romantics do: she wrote a song about it.
“12 Blown Tires,” the latest (and likely last) single from the husband-and-wife duo Tennis, dropped today ahead of their seventh and final album, Face Down In The Garden, landing 25 April via their own label, Mutually Detrimental. If the track feels like someone bottled 15 years of life on the road and condensed it into four shimmering, bittersweet minutes—well, that’s pretty much what it is.
“It felt like the end of something, though I wasn’t sure what,” Moore says in a press release that reads more like a long-form diary entry. After over a decade of crafting dreamy, vintage-tinged pop, Tennis is officially pulling the plug.
Let that settle in.
But they’re not vanishing quietly. Face Down In The Garden isn’t just a swan song—it’s a widescreen, slow-burn goodbye written through illness, breakdowns (mechanical and otherwise), and an attempted robbery at sea. Made entirely in their Denver home studio (with the exception of a bit of outside drumming), the album dips into every sonic era they’ve ever flirted with—Brill Building shimmer, synth-pop haze, rock ’n’ roll ache—and comes out sounding like a band taking their final bow on their own terms.
If you’re not already misty-eyed, they’re releasing Neutral Poetry: First Recordings, Unreleased Demos 2009–2010 on 16 May—a nostalgic grab-bag of 4-track demos from the beginning of their career. Think early takes of “Cape Dory” and “Marathon,” plus songs you’ve never heard before with titles like “One Day This Will Be a Good Songgg” (three g’s, heartbreak implied).
And yes, of course, they’re touring. It kicks off 16 May in Las Vegas and snakes through the US before wrapping in September. There are stops at First Avenue (Minneapolis), Pier 17 (New York), and the Greek Theatre (Los Angeles). Supporting acts include Husbands and Billie Marten. Expect tears, singalongs, and the full indie-pop catharsis. Maybe don’t wear eyeliner.
This whole send-off feels distinctly Tennis: tender, composed, a little chaotic in all the right places. Moore says they’ve “said everything we wanted to say” and are ready for something new. It’s not an end so much as a shift—two artists moving on from the project that defined their twenties and thirties, doing so with a graceful exhale instead of a bang.
So no, they’re not vanishing. But this version of Tennis—the duo that began as a couple with a boat and a dream—is wrapping up its final chapter. Face Down In The Garden is the epilogue. “12 Blown Tyres” is the memory. And the tour? Well, that’s the part where we all say thank you.
Face Down In The Garden is out 25 April. Stream “12 Blown Tyres” now. Pack tissues. Maybe a spare.
