On The Player
What’s on your player? There’s plenty of great music out at the minute, here’s a selection of what we have been playing…
SoCal icons and one of punk rock’s best-selling bands of all time, The Offspring, unveiled the music video for We Never Have Sex Anymore. The video takes a literal animalistic approach, enlisting human’s closest genetic species – chimpanzees – to play out the lamentations of the punchy, horn-heavy, tongue-in-cheek song. The result is three and a half minutes that include all-too-familiar scenes of passions fading and a wild night out with John Stamos.
After teasing fans with curious advertisements on socials over the last few weeks, Australian favourites Slowly Slowly have finally revealed their iconic new single and music video Blueprint.
From its pulsing verses to its electric chorus, Blueprint, mixed by Jon Gilmore (The 1975, Beabadoobee), is born to be a head bang-worthy festival crowd favourite. Filled with unique lyrics and musical touches, the track displays a familiar Slowly Slowly dipped in a refreshing new light.
Frontman Ben Stewart explains how Blueprint originated after a party with his nearest and dearest just before COVID last year. He describes the complete elation at having so many of his loved ones in the room, and how the track immediately flowed out of him the following morning.
“There was no awkward small talk, no drugs needed to stimulate conversation (granted there was booze), but I’ve got a feeling it was mostly the blistering loud music and the fact we hadn’t all been together in so long. Honestly my house was destroyed the next day, but strangely it just reminded me of what it means to come home to something,” he shares.
“Throughout lockdown that feeling of elation completely faded into a distant memory. This song then became something we planned to release after the harshness of it all had blown over — a party track that could become somewhat of a “fist-in-the-air’ moment after realising what we’d all been fighting for.”
Following the release of their debut EP Friends in 2020, Adelaide’s pop-punk outfit Wing Defence is back on the court with the official music video for their latest single Greener Pastures.
It’s a spicy comeback from South Australia’s ‘Best Group’ (as awarded at the 2020 SAM Awards) accompanied with fierce and honest lyrics which is a powerful nod to anyone that’s ever felt trapped in a job where you’re overworked, rarely appreciated and under-paid.
“You’d be pretty lucky if you’ve avoided a situation where you’ve been treated unfairly by your boss or a colleague… It’s incredibly frustrating and upsetting when this happens and you just want to tell them where to go, which most of the time, you can’t! That’s what this song is all about — a way of releasing all the frustration around the things you can really never say”, states Wingies’ guitarist and producer Benny Tamblyn.
There’s something about the way Eliza & The Delusionals execute their music that makes listeners feel both at home and taken on a new journey at the same time. Existing within the band is a song writing dynamic that has only gone from strength to strength since their break out back in 2017 and now, heading into 2021, the Potsville/Brisbane group is back to belt it out the park once again.
With YOU, Eliza & The Delusionals return with a spirited and bright dose of indie-rock – a perfect reminder of their talents as artists and for those new to their game, it’s a perfect gateway point to their wider catalogue. Led by Eliza Klatt’s emphatic vocals, bolstered by excellently threaded guitars and rhythms, YOU is an addictive listen.
Similar to contemporaries like Pale Waves, Soccer Mommy and Beabadoobee, Eliza & The Delusionals are unafraid to go in deep when it comes to writing from a personal perspective. YOU is no different. Says guitarist Kurt Skuse of their latest track, “‘YOU’ was written as a point of view type situation of any type of relationship where you just can’t possibly do enough for a person, only to have them give nothing in return and pretty much throw it back in your face. Essentially watching someone fall apart and knowing there’s nothing more you can do to help. That’s why it’s called ‘YOU’, it’s for you.”
Dehumanise is the third single to be released from the forthcoming album EYE TO EYE from New Zealand’s Lords of Loud, The Datsuns. Released digitally and on limited edition 7″ single, the set-to-stun dystopian riff rocker is accompanied by the dramatic non-LP B-side Negative Swing.
Emotions railing against the system. A homogenous future, devoid of the very thing that makes man, man. Freedom & individualism are outcast. The here & now is a seething, twisted mass. The Datsuns strap those feelings to some rock & roll. “Dehumanise” is stomping three chord-age, dive bombing stun gun lead, a bed of surging Hammond keys, stair tumbling stop/start riddims. Key tinkling, fat fuzz wah & squeal.
“Dehumanise is another Sci-Fi inspired number, about being literally stripped down to your utilitarian parts by the machines and machinations around you. The main parts were written on tour, opening for Graveyard in Europe some years back. I was listening to a ton of heavy 70’s rarities at the time, sampling their drum intros in Garageband to make demos. This one features more custom fuzz guitar FX courtesy of Christian and also my first attempt at a synth solo, wild!” – Dolf Datsun
James has released a brand-new track taken from their forthcoming album All The Colours Of You. Beautiful Beaches is available now across all DSPs, with the album following on 4th June.
A resident of Topanga Canyon for many years, Tim Booth wrote the lyrics of Beautiful Beaches in response to climate change migrations and the subsequent increasingly regular Californian fires bringing devastation to his community. It was inspired by a friend who lost his ‘fire proof’ home and had to flee for his life to the beaches and a recurring vision Tim had last year of earthquakes and fires in California – a vision which has resulted in his family selling up and leaving the Canyon. ‘That life we left behind, we’re racing down to those beautiful beaches’.
Tim Booth says: “We love how this song is so uplifting, focusing on new beginnings. I like the idea that many might not know the backstory and hear it as a post Covid holiday song! Praying that the lyrics don’t turn out prophetic.”
LA’s finest, The Bronx release a new single Superbloom. The announcement comes off the back of their recent new album news, the highly anticipated Bronx VI will be released on August 27th via Cooking Vinyl. Artwork for Superbloom was designed by Australian husband-and-wife visual artist, DabsMyla.
The Bronx frontman Matt Caughthran says of the new single ‘’Superbloom is a search for deeper meaning. Musically, the song originated from our bass player Brad Magers, his first official offering on a Bronx record. The chorus was co-written by guitarist Joby Ford, so there is a sonic push/pull that takes place for the first time in Bronx history. Lyrically, the song is about a day I spent lost in the California wildflowers with an old friend. Reflecting on the past in a somewhat desperate attempt to make sense of the present. A very inspired song beginning to end, one of my favourites on the record.”
Just after celebrating 20 years together, legendary post-hardcore outfit Silverstein have released a standout, anthemic new single and video titled Bankrupt.
Last year’s milestone marked two decades of relentlessly pushing themselves from their underground roots to becoming one of the most influential bands in their scene. As Silverstein set out on their official worldwide 20th Anniversary Tour to celebrate, the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, forcing them, along with so many others, to drop everything and take shelter back in their respective hometowns. As 2020 took a turn to being a horrible time for most, the band were hit with an onslaught of rage as they watched the select few in elevated positions leverage their power, and opportunistically kick us while we were down.
The band took their fury into the studio and continued writing all throughout lockdown – Bankrupt being the first look into those sessions. The track proves the bands’ roots in punk are firm in place. Guitarist and songwriter Paul Marc Rousseau explains:
“I don’t know how to feel anything but rage anymore. The rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer. Wages are stagnant, tuition costs are rising, jobs are being automated/off-shored, costs of a home are laughable in most major cities. The walls feel like they’re closing in and escape is starting to feel impossible. Two-faced leaders and greedy elected officials line their pockets while stripping funding for the programs that we actually need. What are we supposed to do now? Looking out for one another on a community level is good, but changing a crooked system is better.”
“The freneticism of the rhythm makes me wanna take off and start running or……just break something,” says multi-platinum, five-time ARIA and Grammy award winning global superstar, Keith Urban of his song Out The Cage, which sees the debut of its music video. “ ‘Out the Cage’ began with an idea I had to build upon a ’90s English house breakbeat rhythm; I’ve always loved Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, those kinds of rhythmic energies” explains Urban.
As with his current hit single One Too Many, Urban’s duet with P!nk, Out The Cage features an unlikely collaboration that includes legendary funk master Nile Rodgers and country-trap songwriter/producer and performer, Breland. Out The Cage was one of four tracks written during Covid lockdown in 2020 with the lyrical content exploring themes of freedom. “I really wanted this song to speak to liberation of all sorts, even if that’s somebody in a dead-end job, somebody that’s stuck in a relationship that’s going nowhere and they can’t get out, someone imprisoned in their own mind.” says Urban of the emotive single.
Australian rock trio Short Stack have revealed their latest single and video Live4. Short Stack frontman Shaun Diviney shares how Live4 was the first track the band penned in their first writing sessions back together, adding:
“‘Live4’ is song is about celebrating being the underdog. We wanted a huge, anthemic song that would feel massive live. Choirs is something we’ve never done before, but we really wanted the chorus to explode.”
Iconic band CROWDED HOUSE reveal their brand-new single Playing With Fire. The pop-rock anthem is the latest release from the band’s forthcoming seventh-studio album, Dreamers Are Waiting, out on June 4 via EMI Music Australia, available for pre-order HERE. Playing With Fire is accompanied by a Simon Mark Brown directed visual, which features a full-band performance set within a dream-like sequence.
“This song was formed out of a Crowded House jam, live in the studio but then evolved its character through many twists and turns during quarantine in 2020. ‘Playing With Fire’ carries within it the contradiction I often feel on joyous occasions, the presence of hope together with an impending sense of doom,” said Neil Finn.
New single World of Pain is another hard-hitting new Hoodoo Gurus single and a perfect follow up to last year’s freshly-minted Gurus classics Hung Out to Dry and Get Out Of Dodge. Dave Faulkner describes World Of Pain as “a combination of glitzy glam rock and dirty barroom blues. It has a swagger and a cocky attitude, although the song’s narrator is clearly having a very bad night. The poor sap – he thinks he’s having fun!”
Faulkner continues: “‘World Of Pain’ is a slightly fictionalised story about the aftermath of a big night on the town that got way too big. I’ve personally lived out every thing described in the song (I’m not proud of that fact). Luckily for me, the events described in the lyrics didn’t occur in exactly this order or over the one night. Nevertheless, it’s all true. Oh, and before you ask, the answer is: yes, I have been punched in the face in a nightclub when I was a bit drunk one night.”
Teenage Fanclub have shared a final preview of their highly-anticipated album with a new song and video for In Our Dreams. Written by the band’s Raymond McGinley, it’s the fifth single off Endless Arcade, out now. The song evokes an exploratory voyage inward and reflects the melancholic yet uplifting themes present throughout the rest of the record.
The video was shot at Motherwell Concert Hall by long-time collaborator Donald Milne.
McGinley had this to say about the new song: “To rephrase an aphorism most famously used by John Lennon, existence is what happens while the human race is busy making other plans. This song is kinda about that, but like all our songs, we write them intuitively and only think about what to say about them afterwards.”
Multi-Platinum rock band Angels & Airwaves have returned with the searing new single Euphoria. Bristling with incendiary guitars, explosive drums and spacey electronic elements, the infectious track captures the allure of an edgy romance.
To launch the single, the band activated Project Dreamland, which disseminated cassette players, tapes and evidence files to a number of fans, enabling them to unlock the countdown to the release of Euphoria via Rise Records/BMG. The provocative official video for Euphoria was unveiled today in a YouTube Premiere. Angels & Airwaves’ Tom DeLonge directed, weaving a tale of intrigue complete with a femme fatale, her lover, a mysterious motorcyclist, Area 51 intelligence and a tour de force performance by the band.
“In a music world that seems to be absent guitars, angst, and emotional authenticity, I felt it was important to lead with a song that mirrors the post-hardcore days of my youth, where the power of the music creates that feeling we once had as teenagers, where we wanted to break something and change the poisonous environment within our broken homes,” explains Tom DeLonge. “These emotions create us. This song shows the seductive nature of an intense love built with that baggage from our youth, from being born into an imperfect household.”
My Lucky Card, the third video from Hardware, Billy Gibbons’ forthcoming (June 4) Concord album has surfaced. Like its predecessors, West Coast Junkie and Desert High, it was produced in California’s high desert near Joshua Tree where the album was recorded this past summer. The new video was shot in and around Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, the celebrated cantina/honky-tonk that was originally built as part of the western movie set where The Cisco Kid and Gene Autry TV shows were filmed as were such features as Judge Roy Bean and the celebrated film noir Jeopardy, the latter starring Barbara Stanwyck and Barry Sullivan.
Says Gibbons, “We thought Pappy’s would be a great place for us to do the video since it reflects the rough and tumble high desert vibe that was the inspiration for the album.” He revealed that the stage performance of the song as seen in the video is the first and only take and confided, “I play a slide guitar in this one but neglected to bring a proper slide along for the shoot. Necessity being a mother, we improvised and used a beer bottle. We went through a case or more looking for just the right bottle neck and, at last, found one on a classic Mexican brew. That was some thirst-quenching research to be sure.”
Punk rock collective The Crew release One Voice, a rousing punk rock anthem about unity. The Crew features legendary punk rockers, Fletcher Dragge & Byron McMackin of Pennywise, Mike Muir of Suicidal Tendencies, and Tim Armstrong & Matt Freeman of Rancid.
“Collaborating with Tim Armstrong, Mike Muir, And Matt Freeman has been an awesome experience, obviously Byron Mcmackin and I go way back. Byron and I had a demo of ‘One Voice’ laying around for couple years, and I thought it would be cool to bring a couple old friends on board to breath some new life into it,” explains Fletcher Dragge. “Watching these guys lay down their own personal trademark styles on this song was nothing short of amazing! I think it’s safe to safe we’re all pretty fucking stoked on the final product. Find it, crank it up, and enjoy!”
UK’s Mr Jukes & Barney Artist are excited to share details of their collaborative album, The Locket to be released on July 2. The album is preceded by the single Vibrate which is out now via Locket Records / Virgin Australia.
Vibrate is a playful introduction to the world Jukes (Jack Steadman) and Barney have created, built on a mutual love of A Tribe Called Quest and J Dilla, alongside contemporary heavyweights like Kendrick Lamar, Kano and Ghostpoet. Its breezy, laid back energy is purpose-built for sound tracking moments as the world reopens.
Its accompanying video sees Mr Jukes and Barney take a trip to an empty Alton Towers, breathing life back into a space that’s been deserted for too long. The pair initially asked permission to film on a rollercoaster as part of a different idea for the video but when Alton Towers instead offered them private access to the whole theme park, they knew they had to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Speaking about the track, Barney explains: “Vibrate was the very last song we made for the album. It really summarises mine and Jack’s relationship which is great vibes with a meaningful message.”
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