Category: punk rock

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Be Your Own Pet Returns from 15-Year Hiatus with a Roar

Nashville-based punk outfit Be Your Own Pet — Jemina Pearl Abegg (vocals), Jonas Stein (guitar), Nathan Vasquez (bass) and John Eatherly (drums) — originally formed back in 2004 while its original lineup — Pearl, Stein, Vasquez, Eatherly and JEFF The Brotherhood‘s Jamin Orrall — were all attending Nashville School of the Arts. The then-quintet honed a spastic-yet poppy sound playing house shows and gigs at all-ages venues like Guido’s Pizza and Bongo Java.

The Nashville-based quintet played attention-getting sets at 2004’s CMJ and 2005’s SXSW, which helped to create buzz for them Stateside. Around the same time, their first single “Damn Damn Leash,” which was released as a CD-R, caught the attention of BBC Radio One‘s Zane Lowe, whose support helped the band gain an early UK following.

Building upon a rapidly growing profile, the members of Be Your Own Pet released a string of singles and EPs release through Infinity Cat Recordings, which they supported by playing sets across the global festival circuit, including stops at Coachella, Bonnaroo, Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds — and opening slots for Arctic Monkeys, Sonic Youth, Kings of Leon and others.

Their early material received critical acclaim from Pitchfork, Rolling Stone and NME, who named the band’s Jemina Pearl in the Top 10 of their annual Cool List and NYLON, who put the band on the cover of their summer 2006 issue.

The band signed to XL Recordings in the UK and Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace Universal Records imprint in North America. Both labels released the band’s first two albums, 2006’s self-titled full-length debut and 2008’s Get Awkward.

After finishing a small UK tour to support Get Awkward, the band announced their breakup — and they went off on their own separate ways creatively and professionally: Stein and Eatherly went on to play in Turbo Fruits, along with their friend Max Peebles. Vasquez went on to play in Deluxin’. Pearl has played in a number of different projects including Cheap Time and Rare Form, and has released material as a solo artist.

After 15 years apart, the band recently made a triumphant return to both the stage and airwaves: They played SXSW and opened for Jack White ahead of the release of their critically acclaimed single “Hand Grenade,” which Rolling Stone dubbed “incendiary” and The Fader dubbed “hard to ignore.”

BYOP’s long-awaited and highly-anticipated third album and first in 15 years, Mommy is slated for an August 25, 2023 release through Third Man Records. The album was written and recorded by the band’s three founding members Pearl Abegg, Stein and Vasquez along with longtime drummer Eatherly. “For better or worse, we all were slapped in the face that it wasn’t as easy on our own,” the band’s Stein says of their hiatus. “We were all moderately successful, but nobody found that Be Your Own Pet chemistry.”

The bond returned on the very first day that the band stepped back into rehearsal, which is also when they began writing the material that would comprise Mommy. In the past, Pearl had previously fitted lyrics into the others’ songs, but with the new album, she brought her own ideas into the writing room. “Mommy is the bitch in charge, the one in control,” Pearl says. “It’s a reclamation of myself.” The album also reportedly sees the band bolstering the garage punk ferocity they’ve long been known for with matured song, inspired musicianship and a fervent desire to simultaneously claim their space and define their future.

Along with the album announcement, the punk rock outfit share Mommy‘s lead single, “Worship The Whip,” an irony-drenched, BDSM leather-clad dominatrix-meets-breakneck glam punk-like take on DEVO‘s “Whip It” built around rousingly anthemic hooks, enormous power chords and Pearl’s defiant delivery. “‘Worship The Whip’ is about the right wing authoritarian personality,” explains Pearl. “Aggressive and domineering to people who don’t think like them, while at heart being a submissive to the authority figures who use and abuse them.”

Directed by Jordan William and shot by Ben Chappell, the accompanying video for “Worship The Whip” features the band’s Pearl in latex being both the dominatrix and the submissive.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Protomartyr Shares Punchy “Polacrilex Kid”

Detroit-based post-punk outfit Protomartyr — Joe Casey (vocals), Greg Ahee (guitar), Alex Leonard (percussion), and Scott Davidson (bass) — have become synonymous with caustic, impressionistic assemblages of politics and poetry, the literal and oblique over the course of five albums — 2012’s No Passion All Technique, 2014’s Under Color of Official Right, 2015’s The Agent Intellect, 2017’s Relatives In Descent and 2020’s Ultimate Success Today. 

Protomartyr’s sixth album, the Greg Ahee and Jake Aron co-produced, 12-song Formal Growth In The Desert is slated for a Friday release through Domino Recording Co. Although the band’s Joe Casey had a humbling experience staring at awe-inspiring Sonoran rock formations and reckoning with his own smallness in the scheme of things during the recording sessions at Tornillo, TX-based Sonic Ranch, the album’s title isn’t necessarily a nod to the sand and sun-blasted expanses of the southwest. Detroit or anyplace else on Earth can be its own desert. “The desert is more of a metaphor or symbol,” Casey says, “of emotional deserts, or a place or time that seems to lack life.” And fittingly, the desert brings an existential awareness that is ultimately internal. 

The “growth” referenced in the album’s title came from a period of profound, life-altering transitions for the band’s Casey, including the death of his mother, who struggled with Alzheimer’s for 15 years. Now, 45, Casey had lived in the family home in northwest Detroit all his life. In 2021 though, a rash of repeated break-ins signaled that it was time to move out. Protomartyr’s music — this time more spacious and dynamic than ever before — helped pull Casey up. “The band still being viable was very important to me,” Casey adds, “and it definitely lifted my spirits.”

Having long served as the band’s unofficial musical director, Greg Ahee knew what Casey had been going through and the challenges he’d been processing, and as he was conceptualizing the music, he thought about how to make it all “like a narrative film.” The cinematic sensibility also manifest itself in Casey’s song-as-story-like lyrics, which reportedly see him critiquing ominous techno-capitalism, processing aging, the future and the possibility of love. But the underlying them as Casey describes it, is a testament to “getting on with life,” even when it feels impossibly hard. 

 Post quarantine, the band regrouped with an understandable sense of uncertainty, questioning if and how to continue after the turbulence of the past few years. They found themselves channeling that ambivalence to hone a song they named after a chapter from a 1950’s teen dance manual. “Elimination Dances,” Formal Growth In The Desert‘s second single referred to a game where “‘you get tapped out when you lose the dance,” and that felt an apt metaphor for just surviving. “Life is a struggle, but “you might as well keep dancing until the tap comes,” Casey says.

Fittingly “Elimination Dances” is a cinematic yet tense and uneasy waltz built around rolling and propulsive drumming, angular and wiry bursts of guitar and a sinuous bass line paired with Casey’s urgent, snarling delivery. The song partially recounts Casey’s experience feeling small in the vast and indifferent desert, the existential acknowledgement of time and the struggle to survive with your dignity and wits intact. 

“Polarcrilex Kid,” the final single off the album derives its title for the chemical name for nicotine gum, something that Joe Casey refers to as an “unwanted friend I’ve become acquainted with since getting on the quit smoking/start smoking again tilt-a-whirl.” Built around propulsive, staccato drumming, tense, wiry guitar busts paired with Casey’s punchy delivery, “Polarcrilex Kid” is woozy mix of punk and post punk with remarkably cinematic elements — i.e., the shimmering pedal steel solo towards the song’s coda. Thematically, the song tackles a familiar Protomartyr concern: Can you hate yourself and still deserve love?

Directed by LooseMeat.Biz – David Allen, Nathan Faustyn — the accompanying video for “Polarcrilex Kid” brings back memories of shitty public access TV — in particular, Uncle Floyd and the like. But it also serves as a preview to the band’s forthcoming appearance on The Marty Singer Telethon, premiering on Highland Park TV on Thursday at 7:00pm Eastern. Hosted by the imitable Marty Singer, who appeared in the video for “Processed By The Boys” and Sarah McMahon and will feature a collection of talented performers, including Stoney Sharp, the wrangler; the Mt. Sinai Hospital Dance Team and more. Fittingly, the video features the band performing with a collection of weird, surrealistic performers.

Protomartyr will be supporting Formal Growth In The Desert with an extensive intentional tour that includes a two night stay at Bowery Ballroom — June 15, 2023 and June 16, 2023. It also includes a two night stay at one of my favorite rooms in Philly, Johnny Brenda‘s — June 17, 2023 and June 18, 2023. Check out the full list of dates below. Also, there’s a pre-order link for the album, which is also below. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Fresno’s Trash n’ Privilege Share a Furious Ripper

Fresno, CA-based punk outfit Trash n’ Privilege — Steve Shepard (vocals, guitar), Charles McClelland (vocals, guitar), Joe Triester (bass) and Jim Chaffin (drums) — specialize in a brusing punk rock, built around driving beats, big guitar riffs and raw vocals, influenced by the 80s California and DC hardcore scenes, where the band’s members grew up and cut their teeth. Lyrically, the band’s material frequently focuses on criticism of Big Tech, hypocrite culture, everyday life experiences and the 24 hour news cycle, among other things.

Trash n’ Privilege’s latest single “Fresh Idea” is a bruising ripper built around enormous power chords, thunderous drumming and Shepard’s Henry Rollins-like delivery paired with enormous, mosh pit friendly hooks. Lyrically and thematically, “Fresh Idea” is a fiery indictment on hypocrisy.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 72nd Birthday, Joey Ramone!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 72nd anniversary of The Ramones’ Joey Ramone’s birth

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Dream Wife Share Urgent and Incisive “Who Do You Wanna Be?”

London-based punk outfit and JOVM mainstays Dream Wife — Rakel Mjöll (vocals) (she/her), Alice Go (guitar, vocals) (she/her) and Bella Podapec (bass, vocals) (they/them) — will be releasing their highly anticipated and long-awaited third album Social Lubrication through Lucky Number on June 9, 2023.

Throughout their career, the trio has been remarkably adept at merging the political and the playful, and Social Lubrication further cements that reputation. Forceful, vital statements are hidden within hot and heavy dance floor friendly anthems about making out, having fun and staying curious. In the JOVM mainstay act’s words, the album is: “Hyper lusty rock and roll with a political punch, exploring the alchemy of attraction, the lust for life, embracing community and calling out the patriarchy. With a healthy dose of playfulness and fun thrown in.”

There is a sense of fun and openness that is central to Social Lubrication, as well. “There’s a lot of lust in this album and taking the piss out of yourself and everyone you know,” Rakel Mjöll says. “It’s almost quite juvenile in that way.”

“The album is speaking to systemic problems that cannot be glossed over by lube,” Dream Wife’s Bella Podpadec says. “The things named in the songs are symptoms of f-ed up structures. And you can’t fix that. You need to pull it apart.”

Perhaps more than ever, the live show is at the core of the album and its material. “The live show is the truth of the band,” Alice Go says. “That’s at the heart of what we do and of the statements we’re making.” For the members of Dream Wife — and of any band, really — the live show is where the band and fans can come together in a shared moment of community. And to that end, the album is a celebration of community and a big ol’ middle finger to the social barriers that are enforced to sever connection, playfulness, curiosity and sexual empowerment. “Music is one of the only forms of people experiencing an emotion together in a visceral, physical, real way,” says Go. “It’s cathartic to the systemic issues that are being called out across the board in the record. Music isn’t the cure, but it’s the remedy. That’s what Social Lubrication is: the positive glue that can create solidarity and community.” 

An energetic, pedal-to-the-metal sound explodes through the album’s material. And you can hear it the loud, dirty riffs and shout-along worthy choruses specifically crafted for shaking asses, bouncing around and yelling joyously in shared spaces with friends and strangers. For the band’s Go, who produced the album, it was important to capture and bottle that joyful, frenetic feeling the band’s members all felt. “We wanted to get that rawness and energy across in a way that hadn’t been done before,” she says. 

 In the lead-up to Social Lubrication‘s release next month, I’ve written about three of the album’s released singles to date:

“Leech,” an urgent, post-punk inspired ripper that saw the band’s Mjöll alternating between spoken-word-like delivery for the song’s verses and feral shouting for the song’s choruses. Mjöll’s vocal delivery is paired with an alternating song structure that features looping and wiry guitar bursts for the song’s verses and explosive, power chord-driven riffage for the song’s choruses. The song is a tense, uneasy and forceful, mosh pit friendly anthem for our uncertain, fucked up time, that addresses the inherent double standards of power — while urgently calling for more empathy.” 

“It’s an anthem for empathy. For solidarity,” the JOVM mainstays explain. “Musically tense and withheld, erupting to angry cathartic crescendos. The push and pull of the song lyrically and musically expands and contracts, stating and calling out the double standards of power. Nobody really wins in a patriarchal society. We all lose. We could all use more empathy. As our first song to be released in a while, we wanted to write something that feels like letting an animal out of a cage. It’s out. And it’s out for blood…”

“Hot (Don’t Date A Musician),” a Gang of Four-like, tongue-in-cheek ripper inspired by Mjöll’s grandmother’s sage advice — despite the fact that she herself, dated many musicians in her day — while wryly poking fun at musicians and the music adjacent, the band included. “Dating musicians is a nightmare,” Mjöll explains. “Evoking imagery of late night make-outs with fuckboy/girl/ambiguously-gendered musicians on their mattress after being seduced by song-writing chat. The roles being equally reversed. Having a laugh together and being able to poke fun at ourselves is very much at the heart of this band. This song encapsulates our shared sense of humour. Sonically it is the lovechild of CSS and Motorhead. It has our hard, live, rock edge combined with cheeky and playful vocals.”

“Orbit,” a dance punk ripper. built around a a propulsive disco-inspired post punk rhythm, bursts of wiry guitars paired with enormous hooks and Mjöll’s sultry rock goddess-like delivery that recalls Fever to Tell-era Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Echoes-era The Rapture and LCD Soundsystem among others. Much like its predecessor, the song is fun and rooted in a sense of youthful adventure and possibility. 

“Written through the joy of jamming together and locking into the groove like a multi limbed space age organism, ‘Orbit’ has a dance rock edge from the early noughties of bands like New Young Pony Club and Yeah Yeah Yeahs,” the band explains. “Lyrically, it was inspired by post-lockdown London coming back to life and sharing a space through friendship and community. And how each day you never know what’s in store for you or how a stranger can become someone close to you – for a day, a heartbeat, a phase, or a lifetime.” 

The album’s fourth and latest single “Who Do You Wanna Be” continues a remarkable run of scuzzy post punk rippers built around slashing power chords, relentless four-on-the-floor and rousingly anthemic, shout-along worthy choruses paired with Mjöll’s delivery, which sees her alternating between flirty and bitterly sarcastic within a turn of a phrase. The song sees the band taking on capitalism and faux-activism — with a lived-in annoyance and bemusement. As they explain, the song is “about running on the capitalist treadmill and falling face first on the pavement. Hollow slogans, social media activism without action, leftist infighting, monetising feminism, ‘girl boss,’ all soul crushing nonsense. Capitalism consumes everything. We should tear down the unreachable, anxiety filled idea of perfectionism, and move from hyper individualised narrative to collective action to create hopeful, rebellious, collective, systems of care. This is a call to arms for change.

The accompanying stylishly shot video features the band performing the song in an abandoned leisure center pool in East London, and captures the frenetic energy of their live show.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Minneapolis’ Spit Takes Share a Mosh Pit Friendly Ripper

Minneapolis-based punk outfit Spit Takes — Vanessa McKinney (vocals), Monet Wong (guitar), Angie Lynch (bass) and Charles Gehr (drums) — formed last year. Influenced by Amyl and the Sniffers, X-Ray Spex, Bikini Kill, and The Slits among a list of other acts, the Minneapolis-based punks pair crunchy guitar riffs with raw, unapologetic lyrics.

Spit Takes’ second single, the breakneck ripper “God Bless (Holy Tits!)” is a decided pub rock-take on punk rock, reminiscent of Amyl and the Sniffers. Of course, there are big riffs and thunderous drumming paired with mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses. But at its core, it’s a hilarious and defiantly crude, feminist anthem delivered with a zero fucks given aplomb.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Sweeping Promises Shares an Urgent Ripper

Sweeping Promises — Lira Mondal (vocals, bass, production) and Caufield Schnug (guitar, drums, production — can trace their origins to a chance meeting in Arkansas, which led to a decade of playing together in an eclectic assortment of projects. Their relentless practice has made perfect: Meticulously controlling every aspect of their craft, from the first note they write together, through production and engineering, using space as a key element of their sound, to the final mastering process, each song is an unspoiled fingerprint unique to their long-held dynamic chemistry.

The duo’s full-length debut, 2020’s Hunger for a Way Out was released through Feel It Records. Written before the pandemic, the album’s material managed to pair the anxious urgency of a commanding live performance with a gauzy production, creating a distorted sense of time. That resonated with tons of folks during quarantine, who turned the album into a life-saving flotation device — and fittingly the album received rapturous praise from Stereogum, Pitchfork, and NPR. Around then, Feel It Records and Sub Pop agreed to join forces to distribute the duo’s work across North America and globally, starting with 2021’s “Pain Without a Touch” and their highly-anticipated sophomore album Good Living Is Coming For You.

Slated for a June 30, 2023 release through Feel It Records across North America and Sub Pop globally, Good Living Is Coming For You was recorded and produced by Mondal and Schung in their Lawrence, KS-based home studio. In some way, the album’s title and its material is informed by more than a half-century of underground music revolutionaries, who have taken whacks at the mundane mainstream. English punks spat “NO FUTURE” at germ-free adolescents. Ohio New Wavers devolutionized mankind with whips. Athens art school students chomped at hero worship. MetroCard carrying riot grrls rebirthed the bomp with a gasoline gut. The duo read pandemic minds with 2020’s Hunger for a Way Out. With their forthcoming sophomore album, the return with a new message that initially offers hope wrapped around relief. But maybe it’s warning. Or darker still, a threat.

While the duo have amassed acclaim for unfussy, monolithic anthems, Good Living Is Coming For You is a decided change in sonic direction and approach: They’ve eschewed the brutalist ambience of their Boston subterranean, concrete laboratory and the single mic recording technique of its immediate predecessor. Recorded in a nude painting studio bathed in light with high-ceilings, their Lawrence-based studio is a reverb-rich space, that helps influence the album’s overall sound. Thematically, the album’s material touches upon power struggles, accepting aging, breaking restraints and more, delivered with a fervent urgency.

“Eraser,” the forthcoming album’s opening track and first single, is a gritty and furious ripper built around enormous, shout-along worthy hooks and choruses, thunderous drumming, angular and propulsive bass lines, distortion pedaled guitars paired with Mondal’s powerhouse delivery and copious amounts of reverb. While sonically recalling riot grrrl punk, complete with righteous and urgent fury, “Eraser,” as the duo explain is “a malevolent creep – an overly ambitious, shadowy force who bears an uncanny resemblance to you. She watches your every move, mirrors your motions, and ultimately uses your voice against you without you ever noticing what she’s done. She’s unchecked ambition, a paranoid girl Friday, an overriding impulse to reflect rather than project. She must be stopped at all costs.”

Along with the release of Good Living Is Coming For You‘s first single, the duo announced an extensive list of tour dates to support the album. The tour includes an August 8, 2023 stop at Johnny Brenda‘s, one of my favorite rooms in Philly, and an August 10, 2023 stop at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Check out the tour dates below.

 
Good Living Is Coming For You is available now to preorder from Feel It Records & Sub Pop. LP pre-orders from Feel It Records will be on white/black marbled vinyl, and those from megamart.subpop.com will receive copies on red vinyl (while supplies last).

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Led by singer/songwriter, creative mastermind, and producer, Chance Hutchinson, Montréal-based punk outfit PRIORS have been wildly prolific, dropping six releases, including three full-length albums since 2017. Each of those efforts have seen the Canadian punk outfit firmly cementing a melodic and dynamic punk sound. During that same period, PRIORS have developed a reputation for a wildly energetic live set that they’ve toured across Canada, the States and Europe, while sharing stages with The Mummies, Oblivians, Quintron, and Simply Saucer. 

Adding to a growing profile across the indie and punk scene, the members of PRIORS have made the rounds of the international festival circuit with stops at Goner Fest and M for Montréal. (Their M for Mothland showcase set at last year’s M for Montréal was a personal highlight of a week-long trip of highlights.) 

The Canadian outfit’s Max Deshernais co-produced Daffodil is slated for a June 2, 2023 release through Mothland. Serving as the band’s seventh release and fourth album overall, the album which features  Sonic Avenues‘ Sebastien Godin (guitar), The Famines‘ Andrew Demers (drums) and Tabarnak’s Alan Hildebrandt (bass) is reportedly one of their most hopeful and uplifting efforts to date. Sonically, incisive rhythms serve as the basis for clever arrangements centered around fuzzy guitars, propulsive bass lines and analog synths are paired with Hutchinson’s punchily delivered vocals fed through a bit of reverb, and occasional sax blasts from CIVIC’s and The Steve Adamyk Band‘s Dave Forcier. 

“I’d say Daffodil is a pop-heavy punk record with a lot of positive outlooks. I have spent the last six releases kicking the shit out of myself and it was time for a new vibe. A little sprinkle of positivity amongst the angst,” PRIORS’ Chance Hutchinson explains in press notes. 

Last month, I wrote about album title track “Daffodil,” a song built around a chugging and buzzing electric guitar, strummed acoustic guitar and blasts of wobbling Farfista paired with an insistent backbeat and Hutchinson’s reverb-soaked, punchily delivered vocal. Although it’s more of a bounce and shout-along with the band sort of song, “Daffodil” manages to retain a feral yet joyous mosh pit friendly energy that’s infectious. “’Daffodil’ is one of those songs that happened very quickly,” Hutchinson recalls. “All the parts just kind of wrote themselves including the vocal ideas. In the studio we opened it up a little more with the Vox Jaguar and acoustic guitar and Max added that wild ‘beach sound’ ending with the birds which I really feel pulls it all together.”

Daffodil‘s second and latest single “Optimizer” is a post punk anthem built around a propulsive bass line, relentless four-on-the-floor, angular and shimmering guitar bursts paired with Hutchinson’s reverb-soaked, punchy delivering and the Montréal-based outfit’s unerring knack for catchy hooks and shout-along worthy choruses. Sounding like a prototypical post punk song, “Optimizer” boldly eschews the genre’s common tropes, while being ambiguous” Is it a heart-wrenching cry for help? A sardonic take on peer pressure and confusion? A criticism of a seemingly never-drying and wistful fad? That’s up to you to decide. And I bet it’ll change depending on your mood.

“’Optimizer’ is a direct stab at post-punk because I wasn’t really impressed with a lot of the stuff I was hearing,” Priors’ Hutchinson explains. “We always dipped our toes in post-punk, but I felt it was necessary to dive in on this one. I hadn’t written a song around a bass line since /’Brew HA HA’ from the last record (My Punishment On Earth) and once I had the groove, it was really easy to see where it should go.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: PRIORS Shares Riotously Upbeat “Daffodil”

Led by singer/songwriter, creative mastermind, and producer, Chance Hutchinson, Montréal-based punk outfit PRIORS have been wildly prolific, dropping six releases, including three full-length albums since 2017. Each of those efforts have seen the Canadian punk outfit firmly cementing a melodic and dynamic punk sound. During that same period, PRIORS have developed a reputation for a wildly energetic live set that they’ve toured across Canada, the States and Europe, while sharing stages with The Mummies, Oblivians, Quintron, and Simply Saucer.

Adding to a growing profile across the indie and punk scene, the members of PRIORS have made the rounds of the international festival circuit with stops at Goner Fest and M for Montréal. (Their M for Mothland showcase set at last year’s M for Montréal was a personal highlight of a week-long trip of highlights.)

The Canadian outfit’s Max Deshernais co-produced Daffodil is slated for a June 2, 2023 release through Mothland. Serving as the band’s seventh release and fourth album overall, the album which features Sonic Avenues‘ Sebastien Godin (guitar), The Famines‘ Andrew Demers (drums) and Tabarnak’s Alan Hildebrandt (bass) is reportedly one of their most hopeful and uplifting efforts to date. Sonically, incisive rhythms serve as the basis for clever arrangements centered around fuzzy guitars, propulsive bass lines and analog synths are paired with Hutchinson’s punchily delivered vocals fed through a bit of reverb, and occasional sax blasts from CIVIC’s and The Steve Adamyk Band‘s Dave Forcier.

“I’d say Daffodil is a pop-heavy punk record with a lot of positive outlooks. I have spent the last six releases kicking the shit out of myself and it was time for a new vibe. A little sprinkle of positivity amongst the angst,” PRIORS’ Chance Hutchinson explains in press notes.

Daffodil‘s latest single, album title track “Daffodil” is built around a chugging and insistent buzzing electric guitar, strummed acoustic guitar, and blasts of wobbling Farfisa paired with an insistent backbeat and Hutchinson’s distorted and punchily delivered vocal. Although it’s more of a bounce and shout-along with the band sort of song, “Daffodil” manages to retain a feral yet joyous mosh pit friendly energy that’s infectious.

“’Daffodil’ is one of those songs that happened very quickly,” Hutchinson recalls. “All the parts just kind of wrote themselves including the vocal ideas. In the studio we opened it up a little more with the Vox Jaguar and acoustic guitar and Max added that wild ‘beach sound’ ending with the birds which I really feel pulls it all together.”

Directed by Studio Del Scorpio and featuring additionally photography by Billy Riley, the accompanying video for “Daffodil” captures a behind-the-scenes look at life on the road, including footage of the band playing sweaty, riotous shows across Canada, the incredibly same looking hotel rooms and roads and more.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Dream Wife Shares Tongue-in-Cheek Ripper “Hot (Don’t Date a Musician)”

Deriving their name from a pointed criticism of society’s objectification of women, the acclaimed London-based JOVM mainstays Dream Wife — Rakel Mjöll (vocals) (she/her), Alice Go (guitar, vocals) (she/her) and Bella Podapec (bass, vocals) (they/them) — can trace their origins back to 2015 when the trio started the band as a art project, rooted in a unique concept: a band born out of one girl’s memories of growing up in Canada in the 1990s.

The London-based outfit’s 2018 self-titled debut was released to widespread critical acclaim, and led to the the trio opening for Garbage, The Kills and Sleigh Bells, as well as playing that year’s SXSW. Building upon a growing international profile, the members of Dream Wife also went on a series of headlining tours across the European Union and the States, which included a Rough Trade stop with New York-based genre-defying artist Sabri. 

Dream Wife’s 2020 Marta Salogni-produced So When You Gonna . . . saw the JOVM mainstays writing and recording their most urgent and direct material to date. Thematically touching upon abortion, miscarriage and gender equality, the album’s material is fueled by a “it’s-now-or-never” immediacy. The album’s material seemed to be a call to action to the listener, to get up off their ass and do what they can to get things right. The album was a critical and commercial success, especially in the UK: The album landed at #18 on the UK Albums Chart, making it the only album in the Top 20 to be produced by an all womxn/non-male production and engineering team — and the only non-major label release to chart that high. 

Dream Wife’s highly-anticipated third album, Social Lubrication is slated for a June 9, 2023 release through Lucky Number. Throughout their career, the band has managed to be remarkably adept at merging the political and the playful, and the forthcoming album continues upon that reputation. Forcefully vital statements are hidden within hot and heavy dance floor anthems about making out, having fun, staying curious. In the band’s words, the album is: “Hyper lusty rock and roll with a political punch, exploring the alchemy of attraction, the lust for life, embracing community and calling out the patriarchy. With a healthy dose of playfulness and fun thrown in.”

That sense of fun and openness about everything is central to the albums material. “There is a sense of fun and openness that is central to Social Lubrication, as well. “There’s a lot of lust in this album and taking the piss out of yourself and everyone you know,” Dream Wife’s Rakel Mjöll says. “It’s almost quite juvenile in that way.”

Interestingly, more than ever before, the live show is at the core of the album. “The live show is the truth of the band,” Alice Go says. “That’s at the heart of what we do and of the statements we’re making.” That energetic, pedal-to-the-metal sound explodes through the album’s material — and you can hear it through the loud, dirty riffs and choruses specifically built for dancing and shaking asses together in shared spaces. For the band’s Go, who produced the album, it was important to bottle this joyful, frenetic feeling within each other. “We wanted to get that rawness and energy across in a way that hadn’t been done before,” she says.

The live show is where the band and fans come together in shared moment of community. And to that end, the album is a celebration of community and a big ol’ middle finger to the societal barriers enforced to sever connection, playfulness, curiosity and even sexual empowerment. “Music is one of the only forms of people experiencing an emotion together in a visceral, physical, real way,” says Go. “It’s cathartic to the systemic issues that are being called out across the board in the record. Music isn’t the cure, but it’s the remedy. That’s what Social Lubrication is: the positive glue that can create solidarity and community.” 

“The album is speaking to systemic problems that cannot be glossed over by lube,” the band’S Bella Podpadec says. “The things named in the songs are symptoms of f-ed up structures. And you can’t fix that. You need to pull it apart.”

Late last year, I wrote about “Leech,” an urgent, post-punk inspired ripper that saw the band’s Mjöll alternating between spoken-word-like delivery for the song’s verses and feral shouting for the song’s choruses. Mjöll’s vocal delivery is paired with an alternating song structure that features looping and wiry guitar bursts for the song’s verses and explosive, power chord-driven riffage for the song’s choruses. While the song is a tense, uneasy and forceful, mosh pit friendly anthem for our uncertain, fucked up time, “Leech” addresses the inherent double standards of power — while urgently calling for more empathy.”

“It’s an anthem for empathy. For solidarity,” the JOVM mainstays explain. “Musically tense and withheld, erupting to angry cathartic crescendos. The push and pull of the song lyrically and musically expands and contracts, stating and calling out the double standards of power. Nobody really wins in a patriarchal society. We all lose. We could all use more empathy. As our first song to be released in a while, we wanted to write something that feels like letting an animal out of a cage. It’s out. And it’s out for blood…”

The album’s second single “Hot (Don’t Date A Musician)” is a hilarious, Gang of Four-like, tongue-in-cheek ripper inspired by Mjöll’s grandmother’s sage advice — despite the fact that she herself, dated many musicians in her day — while wryly poking fun at musicians and the music adjacent, the band included. “Dating musicians is a nightmare,” Mjöll explains. “Evoking imagery of late night make-outs with fuckboy/girl/ambiguously-gendered musicians on their mattress after being seduced by song-writing chat. The roles being equally reversed. Having a laugh together and being able to poke fun at ourselves is very much at the heart of this band. This song encapsulates our shared sense of humour. Sonically it is the lovechild of CSS and Motorhead. It has our hard, live, rock edge combined with cheeky and playful vocals.”

Directed by Bethany Fitter and featuring a concept by Fitter and the members of Dream Wife, the accompanying video employs the use of the classic, follow the bouncing ball to sing along technique, split with someone swiping on profiles on a Tinder-like app. It’s a send up on dating app life that feels — well, familiar.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The C.I.A. Shares Menacing “Bubble”

The C.I.A. are a indie all-star trio featuring Denée and Ty Segall and Emmett Kelly. The trio’s newest album Surgery Channel is slated fora a Friday release through In The Red. Written in 2021, the album was recorded Mike Kriebel at Ty Segall’s Harmonizer Studios, and is reportedly an astute observation and blunt critique — both inward and outward. It’s also an exploration into how harshly intimate that process can be. 

Surgery Channel also sees the band crafting an electrified, pulsating, metallic playpen that will get listeners strutting and moving. Essentially, the album shows punks a new way to move while remaining loyal to the punk traditions of catharsis and social commentary. 

Late last year, I wrote about Surgery Channel‘s second single, “Inhale Exhale.” Centered around buzzing and slashing bass attack, skittering beats and rattling thump, electronic pulse and Denée’s punchy shouting. Seemingly meshing elements of industrial electronica, classic punk and old school hip-hop, “Inhale Exhale” is confrontational and abrasive yet accessible — and mosh pit friendly.

Just ahead of the album’s release, the trio share the album’s latest single, “Bubble.” Featuring buzz and slashing dual bass attack, metronomic-like beats, malevolent atmospherics paired with Denée’s sultry cooing. The song tells a tale of dysfunctional, anxiety-driven desire — the sort that drives the song’s main character to self-destruction.

Directed by Joshua Erkman, the accompanying video features the members of The C.I.A. dressed entirely in white for much of the video — with Denée Segall appearing like a crazed Nurse Hatchett. We see the band in front of a white tiled wall, stuffing themselves with a messy and gluttonous abandon.