"Make You Better," the first song from the band's upcoming What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World, was released yesterday (Nov. 3) to digital retailers and is available to stream on Spotify.

Musically, "Make You Better" finds the Portland rockers shedding the country instrumentation that typified 2011's The King is Dead - but it isn't exactly a return to early form either, with frontman Colin Meloy's usual acoustic guitar replaced with electric, but more, say, R.E.M. than the prog rock undertones of 2009's The Hazards of Love.

"But we're not so starry-eyed anymore," Meloy sings over a full band sound of guitars, piano and drums. The song is the first major release from the album, the band's seventh and first in four years. It's due out Jan. 20.