Sheeran revealed Subtract will be hitting store shelves on May 5 this year, two years after dropping his fourth album, Equals, in 2021.
He admitted to have been working on Subtract for “a decade”, trying to create the “perfect acoustic album”. He noted how he had written “hundreds” of songs with a “clear vision” of what he wanted it to be.
Sheeran then revealed how his life took a dark turn, forever changing the trajectory of his final mathematics-framed album.
“At the start of 2022,” Sheeran said. “A series of events changed my life, my mental health, and ultimately the way I viewed music and art. Writing songs is my therapy. It helps me make sense of my feelings. I wrote without thought of what the songs would be, I just wrote whatever tumbled out. And in just over a week, I replaced a decade’s worth of work with my deepest darkest thoughts.”