The TryForce (2015–2019)
In the video for "The Simple Plot of Metal Gear Solid", released on December 25, 2015, Hanson indicated there would be a third album. [19]
On March 31, 2017, it was announced Hanson would join Ninja Sex Party for the Rock Hard 2017 tour, performing as Starbomb. [20] However, on July 5, 2017, Hanson announced that he would not make the remainder of the Rock Hard Tour dates. [21]
On November 7, 2017, the official Instagram for the band posted images of Hanson and Wecht working on a new project, with the caption, "Interesting things are happening...". [22] On November 15, 2017, a third album was teased again, with the Starbomb Twitter account posting "hey @tomhanks do u want to do a guest verse on our next album, this is a serious offer" which never received an official response. [23]
On a November 28, 2017, episode of Game Grumps, Avidan and Hanson confirmed that they had finished recording the third Starbomb album in El Paso, Texas. The writing and recording process was very different from previous albums, as the trio challenged themselves by spending only one day writing and recording each song; they also mentioned a tentative release date of December 2018. [24] Tupper Ware Remix Party, Ninja Sex Party's frequent recording and touring partner band, will be featured on the album. [24] On a July 29, 2018, episode of Game Grumps, Hanson and Avidan announced that the title of the upcoming album was The TryForce, "as in, we're trying our best! We're a force that tries", with a planned December 2018 release. [25] On August 19, 2018, Ninja Sex Party mentioned in a Facebook post that The TryForce would be produced by Jim Roach, who had produced their album Cool Patrol ; Wecht had acted as producer on previous Starbomb albums. [26]
Regarding the songwriting process, Hanson stated in July 2018 that the third album was an equal effort between the three members, in opposition to previous albums in which he felt that Avidan and Wecht were responsible for most of the songwriting. He stated "my footprint on the first two albums wasn't super huge. It was... Ninja Sex Party does video game songs, featuring Egoraptor, you know, whereas the third Starbomb album really feels like we all wrote it together." [4] Later the same month, Avidan agreed that the new album would be more of a team effort in a video.
On December 23, 2018, the official Starbomb Twitter account released an image that was presumed to be a small portion of the album cover for The TryForce. [27] Over the course of the next few months, they also released several more portions of the image.
On January 8, 2019, in a Game Grumps video titled "2019 Game Grumps Updates + More!", Avidan and Hanson stated that The TryForce would be due for a late March 2019 release. On February 4, 2019, Starbomb announced in a new animated music video (for their first album's "Regretroid") that the album would instead be released on April 19, 2019. [28] [29] On March 29, 2019, a Game Grumps video titled "NEW STARBOMB ALBUM (2019)" confirmed that pre-orders for The TryForce would be available April 5, 2019. [30]
On April 5, 2019, a music video for "Blowing the Payload", Starbomb's first original song since 2014, was released on Egoraptor's YouTube channel, titled, "Overwatch RAP". [31] On April 12, 2019, another new video, for the song, "A Boy and His Boat", titled, "BEST Zelda Rap IN THE WORLD!!!" was uploaded to the same channel. [32] On April 19, 2019, the album's release date, a music video for "Welcome to the Mario Party" was uploaded to the channel, titled, "SICKEST Mario Party RAP!!". [33] On April 26, 2019, another new video, for the song, "Filling in the Name Of", titled, "Tetris RAP ANIMATED! The Long Piece is the BEST PIECE!!" was uploaded to the same channel. [34]
On April 19, 2019, the album was released, along with several new merchandise items. [35]
