Tears for Fears Announce First New Album in 17 Years 'The Tipping Point'

Tears for Fears is looking to rule the world once more, this time with a new album — their first in in nearly two decades.

The British duo announced Thursday that The Tipping Point, their first new release in 17 years, will hit shelves on Feb. 25, with lyrics that reflect "many of the personal and professional tipping points the pair – and the world – have faced throughout the last 17 years."

Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, both 60, put out a best-of compilation called Rule the World in 2017, and the reunion album Everybody Loves a Happy Ending came in 2004.

The new album, however, was a bit of a trial-and-error process for the "Shout" singers.

"Before everything went so right with this album, everything first had to go wrong," Orzabal said in a statement. "It took years, but something happens when we put our heads together. We've got this balance, this push-me-pull-you thing, and it works really well."

"If that balance doesn't work on a Tears for Fears album, the whole thing just doesn't work," Smith added. "To put it in simple terms, a Tears for Fears record and what people perceive to be the sound of Tears for Fears is the stuff we can both agree on."

Orzabal said "pressure and tension" from the band's management regarding their songwriting process (they wanted them to work with popular songwriters working today) threatened to divide them, but things turned around when they switched to new management.

"Suddenly, for the first time in a long time, we felt like we had someone in our corner who understood what we were trying to do," Orzabal said. "We felt like we had somebody on our side. It was the first time in a long time that we decided — we have to do this."

Orzabal and Smith, childhood friends who grew up together in Bath, England, formed the duo in 1981, a bond that Smith describes as "familial."

"It's literally like that's your brother," he said. "It's the kind of bond that you can't really break. It can fall apart at times. You separate for periods, which I also think is healthy, really. But in the end, we always seem to find each other again."

The album's first single is the title track "The Tipping Point," which is about watching someone you love lose their long-standing battle wish disease (Orzabal lost wife Caroline in 2017). A video for the song was released on Thursday.