Tag: Bass Drum of Death

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Bass Drum of Death Shares Scuzzy and Groovy “Head Change”

Slated for a January 27, 2023 release through Fat Possum Records, Say I Won’t, Bass Drum of Death‘s highly-anticipated fifth album marks three major events for the punk outfit founded and fronted by John Barrett:

  • Barrett relocated from New York, where he had been based for much of the band’s run together, back to his hometown of Oxford, MS. “Moving back to Oxford was a much-needed reset,” Barrett explains. “When I started, I just wanted to play in a punk band and drink beers and travel around. I didn’t really think much past that. And I got really burned out. When I moved back home, I started writing songs again, just for fun. I realized I wanted this record to have more of a hometown feel.”

  • Say I Won’t is the first Bass Drum of Death album that sees Barrett writing, demoing and recording with the touring band, rather than Barrett doing everything completely on his own. Barrett discovered a newfound freedom working with collaborators that just wasn’t available to him before, which opened different aspects of the songwriting: a process that featured live recording, layering on different parts and overdubs and then stripping it all back to the bare bones, keeping the raw, wild heart of the music intact.

  • The album also sees the band returning to their long-time label home Fat Possum, who released their full-length debut, 2011’s GB City. “The switch back to Fat Possum was easy,” Barrett says. “It’s much better working with people I know and love and love everything they do.”

Recorded with The Black Keys‘ Patrick Carney at Audio Eagle Records in Nashville, Say I Won’t is a groove-oriented effort batch of songs indebted to 70s rock songs with scuzzy power chords and cruising tempos. The album seems Barrett and company at their loosest, scuzziest and most tuneful while rooted in a hard-won maturity and swagger that comes from a decade of playing music on the road and surviving to tell the story. “I had to relearn that making music is fucking fun,” says Barrett, “and you should have fun doing it. If it’s miserable, what’s the point?” He laughs. “But man, when a song hits, it’s the best feeling in the world. That’s what this record is about. Getting back to that good place and staying there.”

“Head Change,” Say I Won’t‘s third and latest single is a mid-tempo, cruise-ready ripper centered around scuzzy, power chords and a forceful motorik-like groove that sounds indebted to Led Zeppelin and T. Rex. Play loudly on your car stereo and rock out hard, y’all! “We kind of wanted a mid-tempo psych stomper, and really didn’t change a whole lot from the demo,” Bass Drum of Death’s Barrett explains. “We added the dueling guitar bridge in the studio spur of the moment, and it ended up being one of my favorite parts on the whole record.” 

Directed by Joshua Canon, the accompanying video for “Head Change” is fittingly indebted to 70s horror films: a motorcycle riding bad guy stalks the video’s two female protagonists. as they meet up and get a ride from two dudes they hang out with. The video follows the cues and tropes of horror movies, with the four friends drinking beers and bullshitting in a cemetery when our stalker makes their fearsome appearance. But the video has a bloody and ironic turn.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Stockholm’s SNAKE Releases a Mosh Pit Friendly Anthem

SNAKE is a rising Stockholm-based noise punk trio, featuring old friends Mia Maria Johansson  (guitar, vocals), Madeleine Frankie (synths, Theremin, vocals) and Tess De La Cour (drums). Tracing its origins back to 2014, the band found the longtime friends doing something decidedly different from any of their previously work: completely analog garage punk centered around heavily distorted guitars, trashy drums and filthy old synthesizers that the band says is dark without being overly emo rock and yet raw and hard without being full on hardcore punk. 

A month after their formation, the band landed their first gig — and shortly after that, the band began booking gigs across Sweden, eventually sharing stages with Chinese punk act Fan Zui Xian Fa, Bass Drum of Death and Refused among others. Building upon a growing national profile, the band released their Stefan Brändström-recorded and engineered debut, 2015’s Cradle of Snake, which the band supported with a European tour during October and November of that year.  The following year, the band won the Year’s Rock Award at the 2016 Manifest Awards. 

“Falling,” which continues the band’s ongoing collaboration with Stefan Brändström, and interestingly enough, the track is simultaneously, the first bit of new material from the rising Swedish indie act in four years — and the first single of their sophomore album. which is slated for a fall 2020 release. Clocking in at a little over four minutes, the track sonically — to my ears — finds the band meshing L7, Bikini Kill and 90s Riot Grrl punk with the tense and grimy synth punk of JOVM mainstays Nots and Prettiest Eyes, as the song is centered around distorted power chords, propulsive and steady drumming, howled vocals and a rousing hook. Simply put, the song is a mosh pit friendly anthem that’s deceptively anachronistic: it sounds as though it could have been released in 1993, 2003 — or yesterday. 

Directed by Per Norman, the recently released video is a fittingly 120 Minutes MTV-like visual, in which we see the heavily made up members rocking out and moving in a frenetic fashion — before quickly switching to playing a house party in front of a cool bunch of local Swedes.