17 years after their last album release, the British pop-rock duo, Tears For Fears, is returning to the music scene.

The duo, which features Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, is most known for their 1985 hit “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”.

While the song became popular with listeners for its musical quality, it also was speculated to be a gesture towards the cold war, mostly the posturing between America and the USSR.

This led to a lot more than simply radio fame for the pair, having the song banned for broadcast by the BBC during the first Gulf War (1990-1991) due to the songs political themes.

The new full-length studio release titled The Tipping Point was released on February 25, 2022.

Three songs have already been released for listeners to preview what Orzabal and Smith have in store, including the first single and title track “The Tipping Point”.

Following the release of their last album, 2004’s Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, hard times came on the two.

They say the album was inspired by a series of professional and personal “tipping points” that have occurred in their lives since the last release.

Orzabal says he suffered his tipping point in 2017, due to the death of his wife Caroline.

“It came at a time when my [late] wife was very ill. I was watching her become a ghost of her former self. So the song’s narrator is in a hospital ward looking at people about to cross the threshold that we call death,” Orzabal told in an interview with Rolling Stone.

He claims the song alludes to the feeling of being in a hospital, and watching a person cross the threshold from life to death.

Turns out the band didn’t plan on taking such a big step away from music, they claim that they were encouraged by previous managers to work with today’s “hit makers”, but after listening to final demos they found there was little to no creative flow to the songs.

The album features 10 songs along with three additional ones on the deluxe CD edition.

Many fans, young and old, can’t wait to hear what Tears For Fears has in store for us.