It’s a fucking tragedy, and I’m going to run through it right now as a personal lament. But first, the short version: Charles Bissell of the Wrens says we should not expect any new music from his post-Wrens project Car Colors. Gah!

In 2003, after seven years of label drama, personal upheaval, and home-studio perfectionism, New Jersey quartet the Wrens released their third LP The Meadowlands, which quickly and correctly developed a reputation as one of the greatest indie rock albums of all time. The Wrens toured intermittently, basking in adulation, then spent multiple decades working on the follow-up to The Meadowlands.

The delay was mostly attributable to Bissell, one of the two singer-songwriters, endlessly tinkering with his recordings. Sometimes he’d share in-progress versions of songs, and a set of incredible demos made its way onto file-sharing servers, but Bissell never deemed the songs ready for official release. Bissell also overcame a cancer diagnosis in the mid-2010s, and who knows what else was going on behind the scenes in his personal life. Many times, momentum seemed to be building toward a new album release, but it never materialized. Wrens LP4 became the Chinese Democracy of indie rock — except, you know, Chinese Democracy actually came out eventually.

In 2021, the Wrens’ other frontman, Kevin Whelan, finally lost his patience with Bissell and released his own album under the name Aeon Station, incorporating songs that had once been intended for the Wrens and recruiting the other two Wrens to be part of his new band. At the time, there was also talk of a financial dispute related to Bissell’s desire for more credit. Aeon Station’s album Observatory became the closest thing we’ve gotten to a new Wrens album since 2003.

In 2023, Bissell announced that he was finally ready to release an album, which would come out under the band name Car Colors. “Old Death,” Car Colors’ epic debut single, lived up to the lofty standard of The Meadowlands. An “Old Death” 12″ single with two strong B-sides came out in November 2023 along with the promise of new album info in 2024. As usual, that did not happen. Now nearly two years have passed since “Old Death,” and Bissell’s fan base is still fiending for that LP. But according to Bissell, it’s not going to happen.

On Twitter Monday, a fan asked Bissell, “what’s going on with Car Colors? We had a stellar comeback single and then were told “more news soon” and it’s been 2 years since.” In response, Bissell wrote, “Ehh…I don’t know. The short answer, if I’m honest, is that with everything the last few years, I just no longer want to do this anymore.” So this seems to be where we stand: There will be no new Car Colors album, and Bissell will not be releasing any other new music for the foreseeable future.

A personal appeal: Charles, please… release the album, man. Don’t worry about promoting it. Just get it out into the world.