Tag: The Gun Club

New Video: Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds Release a Rocking and Loving Tribute to L.A.’s Sean DeLear

Brian Tristan is a La Puente, CA-born, Tucson-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, best known by his stage known Kid Congo Powers. The 62 year-old La Puente-born, Tucson-based singer/songwriter and musician has a lengthy career as a sideman and as a solo artist with stints in The Gun Club, The Cramps, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Divine Horsemen, Angels of Light, Die Haut, Knoxville Girls and Kid Congo & The Flying Monkey Birds, with whom he has released four albums — 2009’s Dracula Boots, 2011’s Gorilla Rose, 2013’s Haunted Head and 2016’s La Araña Es La Vida.

Tristan’s latest Kid Congo & The Flying Monkey Birds effort is the recently released Swing from the Sean DeLear EP. Thematically, the EP celebrates a dreamlike bridge between life and memory — with two of the EP’s four songs dedicated to dear friends and bandmates, who have since passed: Tristan’s Gun Club bandmate Jeffrey Lee Pierce, who died in 1996 and Sean DeLear, a beloved, underground Los Angeles non-binary punk rock singer/songwriter, artist, fashion maven and scenester, who died in 2017. Interestingly, the EP’s second and latest single “Sean DeLear” is a gritty garage rock ripper centered around a slashing guitars, a steady backbeat, a propulsive bass line, a shout along worthy hook and Tristan’s boozy Fred Schneider-like shouts and feral howling. Lyrically, the song plays a bit on DeLear’s name while featuring a playful metaphor of our dead loved ones swinging from a chandelier at a wild, never ending rager.

Directed and edited by DC-based filmmakers and musician Jonathan Howard with visual development by Jordan Albro, the recently released video for “Sean DeLear” features The Pink Monkey Birds playing in a bric-a-brac stuffed house that Wes Anderson would love, moving to room to room while Kid Congo is on the rooftop serenading a dear friend on a starry night — with the idea that the music will have DeLear rocking wherever his spectral journey takes him in the cosmos.

With the release of their debut seven inch through Third Man Records, the Los Angeles-based indie supergroup Oozelles (pronounced oo-ZELZ) — Dante White Aliano (vocals, guitar), David Orlando (drums), Jada Wagensomer (bass), Samuel Banuelos (guitar, keys, percussion), Gregory Marino (sax, flute, electronic wind instrument) and Philip Minning — exploded into the local and national scenes, receiving attention for a sound that the band describes as “a stickier sub-tropical Birthday Party, Contortions or CAN ghost writing for The Gun Club or The Flesh Eaters.”

Thematically, the band which features former and current members of Warpaint, Starlite Desperation, Dante vs. Zombies, Sex Stains, Detroit Cobras and others, focuses on the dark and murky — and touches upon or makes references to human trafficking, secret doors at weddings, war criminals in mental hospitals, hippie arson, premature burial, vampire sugar parents, pathetic, blood soaked manifestos and pit-bulls attacking pizza deliver drivers.

Building upon a growing profile, the rising Los Angeles-based act’s Dante White Aliano-produced, self-titled debut is slated for a May 1, 2020 release through ORG Music. The album’s first single is the Phosphene Dream-era Black Angels-like “Refill The Swamp.” Centered around propulsive, tribal-like drumming, reverb-drenched guitars, shimmering organ arpeggios, Aliano’s expressive howls and an enormous hook, the song manages to be evoke a creeping and shadowy late night dread — but with the sort of campiness that reminds me of Roger Corman‘s adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe starring Vincent Price and Troma Films.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Los Angeles-based post-punk act Dancing Tongues, featuring core duo Alex Lavayen and Kevin Modry, can trace its origins to the breakup of the duo’s previous band. In the aftermath, the pair relocated to Los Angeles, where they began writing material inspired by the post punk of the late 1970s and 1980s — i.e., The Gun Club, The Cure and Talking Heads.

In 2016, Lavayen and Modry formally started the band, and bay the end of the year, they released their debt EP Positions late that year. Over the next two years, the band played shows in and around San Francisco, Los Angeles and Orange County while slowing building a community of fans and fellow artists. During that same period, the duo who had long held legitimate day jobs in music and art decided that it was time to channel all of their creative energy into the band. And as a result, they furiously wrote the material that would comprise their Jonny Bell-produced full-length debut Hypnotic Tales of Sex and Distress. Reportedly, the album thematically addresses the dissatisfaction, confusion and distractions we all experience as we desperately attempt to navigate through an overabundance of information. Each individual track on the album is meant to mark a chapter in a hypnotic journey that specifically deals with a different story — from the inherent anxieties of creative pursuits, commitment, identity, responsibility, love and romance, and escapement.

The album’s latest single “Body Language” will further cement the band’s reputation for crafting hook-driven material that’s deeply indebted to Joy Division and the like; but the slick production, stubbly pushes the song’s sound into the New Wave direction, making the song subtly nod at Billy Idol.  In some way, the new song finds the band at their most ambitious — but without steering too far from what’s won them attention so far. As the band explain in press notes, the song is about the odd (and yet inherent) push and pull sensation of almost every romantic relationship in which there are periods in which you feel so deeply connected to that person, that it’s like nothing can pull you apart,  and the moments in which you somehow feel disconnected and incomplete. And in those moments, you try your best to maneuver something that’s confusing and complicated — with all the bullshit and baggage of your own life.

 

 

 

New Video: Mark Lanegan Releases a Hallucinogenic Visual for “Night Flight to Kabul”

Over the past few years, I’ve spilled a fair share of virtual ink covering Mark Lanegan, the Ellensburg, WA-born, Los Angeles, CA-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, known as the frontman and founding member of Seattle-based grunge rock pioneers Screaming Trees, and an acclaimed solo artist, who has collaborated with an eclectic array of artists and bands — including  Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain on an unreleased Lead Belly cover/tribute album recorded before the release of Nevermind; as a member of the renowned grunge All-Star supergroup/side project Mad Season with Alice in Chains‘ Layne Staley and Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready; as a member of  Queens of the Stone Age featured on five of the band’s albums — 2000’s Rated R, 2002’s Songs for the Deaf, 2005’s Lullabies to Paralyze, 2007’s Era Vulgaris and 2013’s . . . Like Clockwork; with The Afghan Whigs‘ Greg Dulli in The Gutter Twins; as well as former Belle and Sebastian vocalist Isobel Campbell on three albums. Additionally, Lanegan has contributed or guested on albums by Melisa Auf der Maur, Martina Topley-Bird, Creature with the Atom Brain, Moby, Bomb the Bass, Soulsavers, Greg Dulli’s The Twilight Singers, UNKLE and others.

As a solo artist, Lanegan has released 10 critically applauded albums that have seen a fair amount of commercial success. (Ironically, his solo work has seen much more commercial success than his work with Screaming Trees.) The Ellensburg-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, guitarist and JOVM mainstay’s tenth solo album Gargoyle was a collaboration between him, British-born and-based musician Rob Marshall and longtime collaborator, singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Alain Johannes. That album’s material was both an expansion and refinement of the Krautrock-tinged blues of his two preceding albums  2012’s Blues Funeral and 2014’s Phantom Radio.

Somebody’s Knocking, Lanegan’s 11th full-length solo album is slated for an October 18, 2019 release through Heavenly Recordings, and the album’s material finds the acclaimed singer/songwriter turning to some of his most formative musical influences and loves — electronic music. “I’ve always been into electronic music since I was a kid,” Lanegan says in press notes. “I think the reason those elements have become more obvious in my music is that my tastes have changed as I’ve grown older. The bulk of what I listen to now is electronic. Alain Johannes and I had actually written “Penthouse High” for Gargoyle but then it didn’t really fit on that record. I have been a huge fan of New Order and Depeche Mode forever and have wanted to do a song along those lines for a long time – a blatantly catchy, old-school dance-type song.”

Although Somebody’s Knocking came together during an 11 day session in Los Angeles, much of the album’s deepest musical influences are decidedly European, including the album’s two other writing partners Martin Jenkins, who records as Pye Corner Audio and the aforementioned Rob Marshall, who contribute some newer, murkier forms. Reportedly, Lanegan approached working with each of the album’s writing partners from the perspective and lens of a fan and interpreter. 

Lyrically speaking, the album purportedly sets the listener down multiple rabbit holes, as Lanegan paints psychedelic pictures inspired by the music. “I feel like I write lyrics instinctively. I let the melody come first and then it tells me what the words are going to be and I write whatever feels appropriate,” Lanegan says in press notes. “That said, I’m also influenced by everything I’m into. I don’t usually like to talk about what a song means to me; I prefer that the people who connect with a song do so with their own interpretation. It never crossed my mind what Neil Young meant by After The Gold Rush, only the personal movie it created in my head. My entire life, all the music that I’ve connected to has drawn me in like that. Joy Division, Nick Drake, Son House, The 13th Floor Elevators, The Gun Club… all the music that meant the most to me, the music that saved my life was the music that told my own story back to me.”

Naturally, some aspects of the real world can’t help but seep their way into the album’s material. “It seems to me that the entire world is in a weird, precarious place right now,” the Ellensburg-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter says in press notes. “I try to not be someone in a constant state of worry and alarm but watching the massive divide that is taking place and the political situations, especially in the US and UK makes me think, ‘what the fuck are these idiots thinking?’ The hatred, racism and all this other fear-driven shit, these ‘adults’ that continually drive the machine that perpetuates this ignorance to their own ends should all be in the prison cells instead of the non-violent drug “offenders” in them now. I can’t specifically say how any of this effects my writing but I know that most of the things that occupy my thoughts have a way of coming back out in a song.”

Now, as you may recall, I wrote about the bluesy-Heaven Up Here-era Echo and the Bunnymen-like “Letter Never Sent.” The album’s latest single “Night Flight to Kabul” may arguably one of  be the album’s more dance floor friendly tracks, as it’s centered around thumping, four-on-the-floor drumming, rumbling bass lines, shimmering and skronky guitars, a tight motorik groove and Lanegan’s imitable croon. In some way, the song will likely remind listeners a bit of a bluesy take on the likes of Gary Numan and New Order. But lyrically, the song evokes a hallucinatory and surrealist fever dream, in which things aren’t quite what they seem. 

Directed by Dean Karr, the recently released video for “Night Flight to Kabul” is a hallucinogenic and feverish dream. ‘“The artistry and genius of Dean Karr is what made this video happen,” Mark Lanegan says in press notes. “5,000 still photographs taken in eight hours were painstakingly put together to give the appearance of a strange wraithlike figure moving weirdly through the desolate landscape of the Salton Sea. My third video with Dean in three different decades and I have to say this was the best. The most artistically challenging and satisfying.”

“We had been talking about doing this video for ‘Night Flight to Kabul’ for a month or two and my only concern was how could I pull this off with such a challenging budget for my friend?” The video’s director, Dean Karr adds in press notes. “Being a photographer before I was ever a director, I decided to use my Nikon D810 still camera for the entire music video and turn it into animation throughout the entire clip. What a simple solution! There’s lots of post work involved, which was done by editor and FX artist Joel Nathaniel Smith. There’s alot to be said for the simplicity of working WITHOUT a crew, it was just Mark, myself and a fan of Mark’s (Jason Hall) who drove 3 hours out of his way to meet us at the The Salton Sea, CA to help us shoot a beyond unique video! I think this is one of the freshest looking things out there today and love the ‘melty’ moments, which remind me of doing hallucinogenics back in the day!”

Dancing Tongues is a Los Angeles-based indie rock act, comprised of Alex Lavayen and Kevin Modry that can trace their origins to when their previous band broke up.  Shortly after that they relocated to Los Angeles, where they began to write songs inspired by late 70s and early 80s post-punk — in particular The Gun Club, The Cure and Talking Heads. However, their latest single, the brooding and shimmering “Shotgun” finds the band channeling Crocodiles and Heaven Up Here-era Echo and the Bunnymen and Starfish-era The Church, complete with shimmering guitars, plaintive vocals and big hooks.

“Relationships and creative endeavors are mercurial journeys that often refuse to acknowledge or cater to the needs of one another,” the duo says in press notes. “‘Shotgun’ is a song about the collision between one’s personal life and their shared life. The story describes the balancing act of keeping a relationship intact while fully committing oneself to creative pursuits.”

 

 

 

I’ve spilled my fair share of virtual ink, covering Mark Lanegan, the Ellensburg, WA-born, Los Angeles, CA-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, who known as the frontman, and founding member of  Seattle-based grunge rock pioneers Screaming Trees, and an acclaimed solo artist, who has collaborated with an eclectic array of artists and bands — including  Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain on an unreleased Lead Belly cover/tribute album recorded before the release of Nevermind; as a member of the renowned grunge All-Star supergroup/side project Mad Season with Alice in Chains‘ Layne Staley and Pearl Jam’Mike McCready; as a member of  Queens of the Stone Age featured on five of the band’s albums — 2000’s Rated R, 2002’s Songs for the Deaf, 2005’s Lullabies to Paralyze, 2007’s Era Vulgaris and 2013’s . . . Like Clockwork; with The Afghan Whigs‘ Greg Dulli in The Gutter Twins; as well as former Belle and Sebastian vocalist Isobel Campbell on three albums. Additionally, Lanegan has contributed or guested on albums by Melisa Auf der Maur, Martina Topley-BirdCreature with the Atom BrainMobyBomb the BassSoulsavers, Greg Dulli’s The Twilight SingersUNKLE and others.

Lanegan’s solo career has seen him release ten, critically applauded albums that have seen a fair amount of commercial success. (Ironically,. his solo work has actually seen more commercial success than any of his work with Screaming Trees.) The Ellensburg-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and guitarist’s tenth solo album Gargoyle found him collaborating with British-born and-based musician Rob Marshall, who’s best known for stints with  Exit Calm and Humanist and his longtime collaborator, multi-instrumentalist and producer Alain Johannes. Interestingly, the album’s material was both an expansion and refinement of the Krautrock-tinged blues of his two previously released albums 2012’s Blues Funeral and 2014’s Phantom Radio.

Now, as you may recall, Lanegan’s 11th full-length album Somebody’s Knocking is slated for an October 18, 2019 release though Heavenly Recordings, and the album reportedly less the tale of a brooding rock veteran and more that of someone consumed by a lifelong love affair with music and words. Interestingly, much of the album’s material finds Lanegan turning to some of his most formative musical influences and loves — electronic music.

“I’ve always been into electronic music since I was a kid,” Lanegan says in press notes. “I think the reason those elements have become more obvious in my music is that my tastes have changed as I’ve grown older. The bulk of what I listen to now is electronic. Alain Johannes and I had actually written “Penthouse High” for Gargoyle but then it didn’t really fit on that record. I have been a huge fan of New Order and Depeche Mode forever and have wanted to do a song along those lines for a long time – a blatantly catchy, old-school dance-type song.”

Although Lanegan’s forthcoming 11th album came together during an eleven day session in Los Angeles, many of the album’s deepest musical influences are decidedly European, including some newer, murkier forms provided by Martin Jenkins. who records as Pye Corner Audio or Rob Marshall, a collaborator on Gargoyle and on his own, forthcoming debut album as Humanist. In each case, Lanegan approached working with each of the writers from the perspective of a fan.

Lyrically speaking, the album purportedly sets the listener down multiple rabbit holes, as Lanegan paints psychedelic pictures inspired by the music. “I feel like I write lyrics instinctively. I let the melody come first and then it tells me what the words are going to be and I write whatever feels appropriate,” Lanegan says in press notes. “That said, I’m also influenced by everything I’m into. I don’t usually like to talk about what a song means to me; I prefer that the people who connect with a song do so with their own interpretation. It never crossed my mind what Neil Young meant by After The Gold Rush, only the personal movie it created in my head. My entire life, all the music that I’ve connected to has drawn me in like that. Joy Division, Nick Drake, Son House, The 13th Floor Elevators, The Gun Club… all the music that meant the most to me, the music that saved my life was the music that told my own story back to me.”

Naturally, some aspects of the real world can’t help but seep their way into the album’s material. “It seems to me that the entire world is in a weird, precarious place right now,” the Ellensburg-born, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter says in press notes. “I try to not be someone in a constant state of worry and alarm but watching the massive divide that is taking place and the political situations, especially in the US and UK makes me think, ‘what the fuck are these idiots thinking?’ The hatred, racism and all this other fear-driven shit, these “adults” that continually drive the machine that perpetuates this ignorance to their own ends should all be in the prison cells instead of the non-violent drug “offenders” in them now. I can’t specifically say how any of this effects my writing but I know that most of the things that occupy my thoughts have a way of coming back out in a song.”

Centered around a motorik groove, shimmering guitar lines and a tight hook, “Letter Never Sent,” the album’s latest single manages to bear an uncanny resemblance to Heaven Up Here-era Echo and the Bunnymen but imbued with a bluesy tinge.

 

 

Comprised of founding members Cory Feirman (bass, vocals) and Dan Wise (guitar, vocals) with Will Schmeichen (drums) the Brooklyn-based punk rock trio Honey can trace their origins to when its founding duo met at Academy Records — at the time Feirman worked as a buyer, while Wise was a regular customer. As the story goes, Wise stopped by Academy Records and mentioned that he was looking for The Gun Club‘s Death Party EP, which happened to be the next record in the stack of recent arrivals that Feirman was pricing. The coincidence ultimately led them to realize that they had had more in common than a love of punk rock and punk rock records, and they began playing together not long after that. Interestingly, at the time Wise was a member of JOVM mainstays Psychic Ills and shared an occasional bill with Schmeichen, who was a member of Amen Dunes. Wise and Freirman recruited Schmeichen, who was interested in joining a more straightforward rock-leaning project.
Since their formation, the band has shared stages with the likes of Dead Moon, J. Mascis, Sheer Mag, The Men, Destruction Unit and others, while quickly developing a reputation for being one of the area’s rawest punk bands; in fact, with the release of 2015’s Love Is Hard, the trio received praise for releasing, in the words of Bryon Coley, “a great hard-edged slice of rock noise.” and with the forthcoming release of their sophomore effort, New Moody Judy, the Brooklyn-based trio hope to further cement their burgeoning reputation for blistering noisey rock. And unsurprisingly, New Moody Judy‘s first single “Dream Come Now,” manages to sonically reminds me of JOVM mainstays Ex-Cult and NOTS in the sense that the Brooklyn trio is equally primal, forceful — and perhaps more important, mosh-pit friendly.

The band has a September 12, 2017 show at Union Pool with NOTS, and it may be one of the highlights of the musical year.

New Video: Howl with a Dancing Werewolf in the New Visuals for Dion Lunadon’s “Howl”

Perhaps best known as a member of the internationally renowned, Brooklyn based indie rock trio and JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers, the New Zealand-born, Brooklyn-based bassist Dion Lunadon has had a lengthy music career that traces its origins back to when he was a member of New Zealand-based band, The D4. During a short break in APTBS’ touring schedule, Lunadon had a sudden rush of inspiration that resulted in what he has described as a neurotic impulse to write and record a bunch of songs right there and then — and the end result was his solo debut EP, Com/Broke, an effort, which reportedly drew from the bands that inspired him in his youth, including Toy Love, The Gun Club, Gestalt and Supercar.

Lunadon’s highly-anticipated, self-titled, full-length debut is slated for a June 9, 2017 through Agitated Records. And if you had been frequenting this site over the past few months, you may recall that I wrote about the album’s first single “Fire,” a primal and furiously roaring single that draws psych rock and garage rock, revealing that while its creator is approaching middle age, he’s refusing to go quietly into that good night. The album’s second and latest single “Howl,” continues in a similar vein, meshing punk rock, psych rock and garage punk with a feral howl reminiscent of The Stooges — i.e. “1969” “No Fun” and “I Wanna Be Your Dog” — complete with a forceful, Neanderthal stomp. Certainly in a day and age in which most contemporary music is somewhat safe and packaged for convenient consumption, Lunadon’s solo work is a powerful reminder that rock should be dangerous, rebellious, loud, primal; it should inspire your most base, animal instincts — to howl, stomp, fight, fuck and repeat.

Directed by Ladytron’s Reuben Wu, the recently released music video for “Howl” features Loren Palmer, as a hipster werewolf, expressively dancing to the song in the woods and while being hilariously goofy, the visuals manage to also be as primal and forceful as the song it accompanies.

 

Perhaps best known as a member of the internationally renowned, Brooklyn based indie rock trio and JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers, the New Zealand-born, Brooklyn-based bassist Dion Lunadon has had a lengthy music career that traces its origins back to when he was a member of New Zealand-based band, The D4. During a short break in APTBS’ touring schedule, Lunadon had a sudden rush of inspiration that resulted in what he has described as a neurotic impulse to write and record a bunch of songs right there and then — and the end result was his solo debut EP, Com/Broke, an effort, which reportedly drew from the bands that inspired him in his youth, including  Toy LoveThe Gun Club, Gestalt and Supercar.

Lunadon’s highly-anticipated, self-titled, full-length debut is slated for a June 9, 2017 through Agitated Records. And if you had been frequenting this site over the past few months, you may recall that I wrote about the album’s first single “Fire,” a primal and furiously roaring single that draws psych rock and garage rock, revealing that while its creator is approaching middle age, he’s refusing to go quietly into that good night.  The album’s second and latest single “Howl,” continues in a similar vein, meshing punk rock, psych rock and garage punk with a feral howl reminiscent of The Stooges — i.e. “1969” “No Fun” and “I Wanna Be Your Dog” — complete with a forceful, Neanderthal stomp. Certainly in a day and age in which most contemporary music is somewhat safe and packaged for convenient consumption, Lunadon’s solo work is a powerful reminder that rock should be dangerous, rebellious, loud, primal; it should inspire your most base, animal instincts — to howl, stomp, fight, fuck and repeat.

 

 

 

 

New Video: ATPBS’ Bassist Releases a Noisily Psychedelic Visuals for New Solo Single “Fire”

Although he may be best known as a member of renowned Brooklyn-based trio and JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers, the New Zealand-born, Brooklyn-based bassist Dion Lunadon can trace the origins of his music career to when he cut his teeth in his homeland as a member of The D4. During a short break in touring with APTBS, Lunadon had a sudden rush of inspiration that resulted in what he has described as a neurotic implies to write and record a bunch of songs right there and then — and the result was his solo debut EP, Com/Broke, an effort which drew from the bands that inspired him in his youth, including Toy Love and The Gun Club, as well as New Zealand unknowns such as Gestalt and Supercar while defying what may typically expected of someone who’s approaching middle age.

Lunadon’s highly-anticipated and still untitled full-length debut is forthcoming and the album’s first single “Fire” reveals a man, who refuses to start the process of going quietly into the night, but instead maintains the primal, furious roar that many heard on Com/Broke while subtly drawing from psych and garage rock as soaring organs are paired with enormous power chords with blistering peals of feedback, a forceful and propulsive bass line, thundering drumming and Lunadon’s shouting and howling throughout the song. Interestingly, the song manages evoke a tense, anxious paranoia — the anxious, creeping paranoia that many of us likely feel during this weird political climate.

Directed by Ryan Ohm at Weird Life Films, the recently released video is a slickly edited, purposely schlocky, psychedelic collage of cult-favorite 70s and early 80s horror films, TV commercials, soap operas and post-punk and No Wave acts and other random, period specific ephemera.

Although he may be best known as a member of renowned Brooklyn-based trio and JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers, the New Zealand-born, Brooklyn-based bassist Dion Lunadon can trace the origins of his music career to when he cut his teeth in his homeland as a member of The D4. During a short break in touring with APTBS, Lunadon had a sudden rush of inspiration that resulted in what he has described as a neurotic implies to write and record a bunch of songs right there and then — and the result was his solo debut EP, Com/Broke, an effort which drew from the bands that inspired him in his youth, including Toy Love and The Gun Club, as well as New Zealand unknowns such as Gestalt and Supercar while defying what may typically expected of someone who’s approaching middle age.

Lunadon’s highly-anticipated and still untitled full-length debut is forthcoming and the album’s first single “Fire” reveals a man, who refuses to start the process of going quietly into the night, but instead maintains the primal, furious roar that many heard on Com/Broke while subtly drawing from psych and garage rock as soaring organs are paired with enormous power chords with blistering peals of feedback, a forceful and propulsive bass line, thundering drumming and Lunadon’s shouting and howling throughout the song. Interestingly, the song manages evoke a tense, anxious paranoia  — the anxious, creeping paranoia that many of us likely feel during this weird political climate.