Review: At Minneapolis gig, Ed Sheeran drops surprise news of a new album in the fall

First the news: Ed Sheeran will release a new album on his own label this fall possibly titled "Autumn Variations," he announced late Friday night in Minneapolis.

He didn't come to town to make the announcement. He just spontaneously dropped the exclusive during his first of two Minneapolis concerts this weekend as part of his concurrent Subtract Tour and Mathematics Tour.

The Subtract Tour is a series of theater shows the night before Sheeran's stadium gigs on the Mathematics Tour, which comes to U.S. Bank Stadium on Saturday.

Near the end of his 2 ½-hour performance Friday at the sold-out 2,200-seat State Theatre, Sheeran performed three unreleased songs and explained that they will be part of a new album on his label because his contract with Atlantic Records ended with this year's "-" (pronounced "Subtract").

Released in May, "Subtract" has not been the usual Sheeran blockbuster. It has sold 1 million copies whereas his previous five albums have accounted for 92.4 million in combined sales.

The purpose of the Subtract Tour is to play the album in its entirety in an intimate setting because these songs about grief and loss are depressing and don't translate to a huge stadium. But they connected Friday because chatty, ever-charming Sheeran shared context and inspiration about each song. It felt like a modern-day version of the old "VH1 Storytellers" program.

In short, these songs were a form of therapy as Sheeran, 32, dealt with the unexpected post-pandemic death of his best friend as well as his wife's brain tumor as she was about to give birth to the couple's second daughter.

Before he delivered each "Subtract" number with his five-man band and six-piece string section, acoustic guitarist Sheeran related the backstories with candor, seasoned with his everyman charm and occasional humor. There was a lot of talk about his parents, wife and daughters as well as his buddy Jamal Edwards. Some of the stories had been depicted in May's Disney docuseries "Ed Sheeran: The Sum of It All."

"This is a solitary, morose album," Sheeran explained at the State Theatre (where he performed in 2012 opening for Snow Patrol). "No one is pumping weights to this" like they did to his hit "Bad Habits."

And he kept promising "happy hour" after finishing "Subtract" — all 14 songs including the finale, "The Hills of Aberfeldy," which was written in Scotland in 2012 when he first conceived the album.

The "happy hour" featured classic Ed Sheeran troubadour mode, working solo with his looping pedals that enabled him to create a rhythm track and background vocals. It was the A-list — "Shivers," "Thinking Out Loud," "Perfect," "Bloodstream," "Shape of You," "Bad Habits" and "The A Team."

Then came the three brand new love songs that the British superstar asked concertgoers not to video: "Crashing in Head and Heels," the falsetto-rendered "Blue" and "Magical," which he said he sings to his young daughters daily.

Sheeran pointed out that, even though fans probably couldn't decipher it, he grew up with classical music, the field of his mother and brother. He was fond of Edward Elgar's "Enigma" Variations. Hence the possible title of Sheeran's next project, "Autumn Variations."

"I take 3 ½ years to put together an album," he explained. This new one might come "three or four months" after "Subtract."

"I have no desires or expectations for this album," he continued. "I'll put this album out myself. My own record label. It's not going to have the same push or machine behind it. Songs will not be hammered down your throats for four or five years."

Sheeran ended the evening just like Tony Bennett used to do at the State Theatre, by singing without a microphone — a medley of the traditional Irish/Scottish farewell "The Parting Glass" and his own "Afterglow."

Sheeran brings his Mathematics Tour to the Vikings stadium at 6 p.m. Saturday with openers Cat Burns and Khalid. Look for a review at startribune.com and in Monday's print edition.

For more Ed Sheeran videos, go to twitter.com/jonbream