YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – It took a little longer than  expected – OK, a lot longer – but the Infidels’ new album is almost here.

The Youngstown rockers will release “Never Forever” on Friday, Aug. 22. It’s the band’s fourth album and their first in over two decades.

Everyday life and physical distance naturally slowed the recording process, but so did a mindset of not signing off until they were satisfied. Perfectionism – not artificial deadlines – was the priority.

The resulting 11 songs are punched up and highly polished. They don’t stray from the band’s power pop style, but they do perfect it.

The tunes were written over the past 20-some years in equal measure by the four members – Dave Lisko, Pete Drivere, John Hlumyk and John Koury. The differing styles widen the album’s range in a pleasing way.

During their long dry spell, the quartet kept music simmering on the back burner and never stopped thinking of themselves as a working band.

Despite being unable to get together a lot – Drivere and Hlumyk live in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys, Koury in Twinsburg and Lisko in Rochester, N.Y. – they kept writing. The act last united for a series of shows in 2022.

In a phone interview from his Rochester, N.Y., home, Lisko said the new album reflects the band’s evolution right up to the present moment.

“It’s the next step for the band,” he said. “You know, we’ve been playing together for 40 years, starting out as a three-chord garage band, basically. I think all the free time developed our songwriting, our melodies, our musicianship. And I think this is just another step of that. The songs might be a bit more intricate than before, but it’s still very true to who we are.”

No Regrets

The Infidels were on a trajectory for bigger things in the 1980s and ’90s when they were dominating Cedars and other venues throughout the region. The act toured the East Coast with The Dead Boys and played New York City multiple times.

In their peak years, from 1985 to 1991, The Infidels pushed hard for a record deal before finally letting go of that dream.

“It just didn’t happen,” Lisko said. 

But he has no regrets.

“I always explained it as we had Minor League Baseball success,” he said. “Like, hey we’re No. 4 in Belgium! People knew of the band. But we reached the point of, let’s do this because we love doing it, and not try to quote-unquote make it anymore.”

Their previous album, 2003’s “All for Nothing,” seemed to acknowledge that they had a great run but were ready for a slower phase.

The New Album

The upcoming release picks up where the last one left off – but then drives downfield for a touchdown.

It opens with “When the Clock Strikes 12,” a classic Infidels guitar rocker with a splintered riff, and a great choice for a lead single.

The video for the song intersperses footage from the band in its 1980s heyday, playing at Cedars. It’s a “then and now” angle, but the song is much more a call to action than a reminiscence. It’s a reminder that you never know how much time you have left.

A second video for a cut from the new album, “An Evil Change of Seasons,” will be released soon. The Gin Blossoms-y song, written by Koury and Drivere, is one of many on the album that deserve acclaim.

Some other standouts include Koury’s country-adjacent “Box Full of Tears,”  the Stones-y “Happy Man Blue” (Drivere), Koury’s melancholic “Just Another Day,” Hlumyk’s emotionally raw “Amber Moon” and Lisko’s catchy rocker “Something Else Tonight.”

Writing Songs

Lisko said the band has always been a team effort.

“Early on, Pete and John Hlumyk kind of drove most of the writing, and John Koury as well,” he said. “As the band developed, like on the last record and this one, my writing comes up more than in those early days. But I think it just was what it was.”

Even in its earliest days, the four members were always writing songs.

“We used to have this old poster board on the wall,” Lisko recalled. “We may have had 150 original songs on it, so it was like, OK, what 12 are we going to pick for the record? And we always picked the best 12 songs.”

The band now has so much music in various stages of development that it wouldn’t be a stretch if a fifth album soon came into view.

Some of the material is half-finished and in need of tweaks, but there is a lot to work with.

Like many bands, the four Infidels used the downtime of the Covid year to write songs.

“Since 2020, I think I’ve written 140 songs, and half of them are terrible,” Lisko said. “I was like, ‘I’ll write a song in 5/4 time!’ And, like, that wasn’t good.

“But of those 140, about half are like, ‘OK, there’s something to it.’ And of them, about half are pretty good.”

Lisko said each of the members went through a similar phase.

“We have so much material written that we could probably put together a few more records pretty easily,” he said.

Lisko is hopeful that will happen, but nothing is set in stone. “It’s a matter of finding the time to do it and time to practice and work through everything,” he said.

‘Whatever Happens, Happens’

For now, the Infidels are focused on promoting the new album. They’ve booked an Oct. 11 show at West Side Bowl in Youngstown and a Nov. 1 show at Beachland Tavern in Cleveland.

A gig in Rochester, N.Y., will also be scheduled, and the band has already scheduled an in-studio performance and interview with a rock radio station in that city.

Beyond that, they’re taking a “whatever happens, happens” approach.

“It’s still fun for us, and what we’re doing is still relevant,” Lisko said. “It’s not like we’re just rehashing these old numbers. We’re writing new stuff. And if people find something cool about that, either lyrically, musically or something else about it, that would be really cool. … What a fun thing it would be to get new people into the band after all these years.”

Pictured at top: The Infidels are John Koury, Pete Drivere, Dave Lisko and John Hlumyk.