NELL drops 10th album 'X' featuring Tablo — band's first featuring track in nearly 30 years of activity

NELL released their 10th regular album X on June 17. Their first full-length record in approximately five years.

Four years went into making the 11 tracks. The range is sprawling: some songs were conceived roughly 20 years ago and rearranged for now, while the title track Sweet Delusion marks the band's first-ever brass session recording.

Loser's Recipe features Tablo—NELL's first featuring track ever. Only One is a modern rock song about belief and hope. Don't Let Me Go sits with the fear of losing someone who matters.

The physical format is new territory. Since their debut, NELL has always released on CD. This time: a USB with high-quality master files. An essay book called Diary of X documents the production and the members' own thoughts, published alongside the album.

An exhibition of the same name runs June 20–28 at Seobo Art Space in Seongsan-dong, Seoul.

"Rather than it being special because it's the 10th album, we wanted to make a better album than the previous one, as we always have," the band said. (Nearly 30 years active, 10 full-lengths—the math alone is something.)