The Strokes released “Falling out of Love” on Wednesday, May 13, the band’s second single from its upcoming seventh studio album, “Reality Awaits.” Julian Casablancas opens the track with a line that lands like a shrug and a confession at once: “Fallin’ out of love for the first time/Some things are flawed by design/But I’m fine for the first time.”

The new song arrives as the band prepares for a nationwide “Reality Awaits Tour” this summer, with special guests Cage The Elephant, Thundercat, Hamilton Leithauser, Fat White Family and Alex Cameron. Tickets are on sale for all North American dates, and the lowest price found for any single show was $57 including fees on SeatGeek at the time of publication.

The rollout has been building since April, when the group released “Going Shopping,” the lead single from “Reality Awaits.” The Strokes also warmed up in early April with two headlining shows in San Francisco, including a stop at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, where Set List FM said the band played a 19-song set that mixed old favorites such as “Last Nite,” “What Ever Happened?,” “Someday,” “Hard to Explain” and “Reptilia” with the newer “Going Shopping.”

That recent run gives the new single some added context. “Falling out of Love” is not just a one-off release; it is part of the album cycle the band is pushing into the summer, and it follows the same pattern as the first single by pairing a fresh studio track with a road map for what comes next. The Strokes do not have a New York stop booked on this tour, a detail that will stand out to fans who usually expect the band to make a homecoming stop somewhere on a run like this.

Philadelphia is the next major date on the calendar, with the band scheduled to play TD Pavilion at The Mann on Friday, June 26, where prices start at $126 including fees. The tour is then set to close at Asbury Park’s annual Sea.Hear.Now Festival on Sunday, Sept. 20, giving the band a late-summer finish after a full sweep of North American concerts.

For now, the new single does what a good lead single should do: it sharpens the picture. The Strokes are not only releasing new music from “Reality Awaits”; they are setting the pace for a tour that stretches from June into September, with the strongest answer to the immediate question already in hand — the next chapter is underway, and it begins with “Falling out of Love.”