Sister Cities

Sister Cities is the sixth studio album by American rock band the Wonder Years. Background and concept After the release of No Closer to Heaven in 2015, the Wonder Years spent two years on a massive world tour to support the album. Along the way, vocalist Dan Campbell kept a journal to document experiences and feelings, and the band took photographs of everything they saw. Following the tour, Campbell went through the collections and highlighted excerpts he felt were meaningful. Through this reflection, lyrics began to take shape, and the band worked to compose music that fit the mood of the lyrical content. According to Remfry Dedman of The Independent, Sister Cities came together from this process as "a record that seeks to create unity in a world that is becoming increasingly segregated". Unity is a central theme on Sister Cities. As the band traveled the world, Campbell saw parallels between his own life and the lives of those perceived to be completely different. The title came about when The Wonder Years were waiting at a bus station in Santiago, Chile, after their scheduled tour stop in the city was cancelled. This bus station is near a monument that commemorated the city's international ties. While they were waiting, fans in Santiago asked them to play a different show. The band agreed, and fans picked them up from the station and took them to the venue, where they played for about 100 people. In an interview with Kerrang!, Campbell describes the experience fondly, stating that, "it got me thinking about how we were in a country with no particular reason for being there, and how immediately welcomed we felt when those kids helped us out and put us up for the night". This idea that individuals can find like-minded people thousands of miles from home stuck with Campbell, and the monuments near the Santiago bus station signified this connection, hence the name Sister Cities.