Field Medic Announces New LP ‘Surrender Instead’ Out 8/8, Shares Lead Single/Video “Melancholy”
Field Medic rips open his raw new era today with lead single "Melancholy," preceding the deeply candid album 'Surrender instead' arriving August 8th.
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Editorial Dept.
Field Medic—the beloved project of LA-based singer/songwriter Kevin Patrick Sullivan—today announced his new album surrender instead will be self-released on August 8th, 2025. On its lead single “MELANCHOLY,” which arrives today alongside a self-directed video, deeply candid lyrics float atop a lovable, disarming doo-wop melody.
Listen to “Melancholy”:
“After getting sober, years in therapy, and for the first time taking an antidepressant, I would still sometimes suffer from days or weeks of stifling depression. Experiencing that unique and dreadful feeling comes as quite a shock when you’ve been ‘doing the work’ and ‘healing’ in the ways that I had been, and still am,” Sullivan explains.
“I had just read William Styron’s ‘darkness visible,’ which is his memoir about his time in the throes of a depressive episode. Having also recently written a doo-wop song for a pitch for sync, the ‘50s chord progression was fresh in my mind, as well as the examination of melancholy as a lifelong disease that waxes and wanes, but may never go away entirely.”
Watch the “Melacholy” video on YouTube:
Field Medic’s previously announced fall tour supporting Richy Mitch & The Coal Miners includes stops at NYC’s Webster Hall on October 18th, and LA’s Fonda Theatre on November 8th. A full itinerary is below and tickets are on-sale now HERE. More Field Medic shows will soon be announced. Surrender instead is available for pre-order.
Surrender instead is a rebirth of sorts, arriving after what Sullivan refers to as a brief “mental retirement” from the music business in 2024, a year in which he turned away from the often toxic grind of being a touring musician, and towards a lifestyle centered on searching and healing. “I spent the last few years sober and in weekly therapy, which led to a lot of introspection about how everything that has been affects what is now,” he says. “I spent many years conflating all of my self-worth into the success of Field Medic. I’ve been trying to reconnect with my personhood apart from my persona. The first song on this record finds me wondering if I should just focus on writing sync music for my income instead of dealing with the emotional turmoil of being a front-facing artist.”
Pre-order Surrender instead:
Over time, Sullivan has worn many hats: dive-bar poet, SoundCloud rapper, screamo vocalist in training, synth-popper. Sometimes, he’s a few of those things all at once. He’s a man who’s lived through sobriety gained and sobriety lost. His last studio album of new material, 2023’s light is gone 2, was an inspired, experimental departure from the strum-and-struggle of his previous haunts. But Surrender instead is everything a Field Medic fan could want and everything a Field Medic agnostic could need as a convincing sampler. The album returns to each checkpoint in Sullivan’s career thus far, documenting a twentysomething musician becoming a thirtysomething musician—an artist settling into what life exists just beyond the pale and oft-daunting demands of songcraft.
Across Surrender instead, Sullivan breaks and mends your heart, and says exactly what’s on his mind. He takes down the pay-to-play underbelly of the music industry’s A&R world as much as he laments a departed lover or his forgone relationship with alcohol. 2025 marks 10 years since Sullivan’s debut LP, Light is Gone, first arrived. While Surrender instead signals a new beginning for the prolific musician, it also feels like a celebration of all the work he’s shared this past decade. Playing out like a greatest hits collection, the LP highlights Sullivan’s singular strengths as an artist, and plucks from the highest notes of his catalog to date. The result is Field Medic’s most honest and grounded album yet. It’s not calculated or performative—it’s a practice in self-compassion, in learning to live with what lingers. And in that vulnerability is a quiet offering: the sound of someone trying, healing, and slowly setting their baggage down.
Surrender instead Tracklist:
1. tricks & illusions
2. castle peaks
3. simply obsessed
4. no hometown
5. MELANCHOLY
6. opposite fantasies
7. INFERNO
8. coffee in the morning
9. falling out
10. the journey to the center of nothing
Field Medic Tour Dates:
10/05 – Kansas City, MO – The Warehouse on Broadway^
10/06 – Columbia, MO – The Blue Note^
10/07 – Des Moines, IA – Wooly’s^
10/09 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue^
10/10 – Madison, WI – The Sylvee^
10/11 – Chicago, IL – The Salt Shed^
10/13 – Lakewood, OH – The Roxy^
10/14 – Detroit, MI – Saint Andrew’s Hall^
10/15 – Toronto, ON – The Danforth Music Hall^
10/17 – Boston, MA – Citizens House of Blues Boston^
10/18 – New York, NY – Webster Hall^
10/21 – Washington, DC – 9:30 Club^
10/24 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer^
10/25 – Charlottesville, VA – The Jefferson Theater^
10/26 – Asheville, NC – The Orange Peel^
10/28 – Nashville, TN – Brooklyn Bowl^
10/29 – Atlanta, GA – Variety Playhouse^
10/31 – Oklahoma City, OK – Tower Theatre^
11/01 – Austin, TX – Scoot Inn^
11/02 – Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall^
11/03 – Dallas, TX – The Echo Lounge & Music Hall^
11/05 – Santa Fe, NM – Meow Wolf^
11/08 – Los Angeles, CA – The Fonda Theatre^
11/11 – San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore^
11/14 – Eugene, OR – McDonald Theatre^
11/15 – Portland, OR – Crystal Ballroom^
11/16 – Seattle, WA – Neptune Theatre^
11/18 – Boise, ID – Treefort Music Hall^
11/19 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Depot^
11/20 – Denver, CO – Mission Ballroom^
^ supporting Richy Mitch & The Coal Miners
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