“You get these bedroom producers coming through who spend hours and hours trying to find the perfect snare sound on an EDM track and never consider trying to just write a good fucking song,” said frontman Matt Marcantonio of recent Under The Radar favourites Demob Happy recently.
Now the Brighton grunge quartet are putting their money where their mouths are with debut LP ‘Dream Soda’ and – fear not – it’s absolutely chockablock with good fucking songs. Mixing the sleazy, grimy grind of Queens of the Stone Age and Nirvana with rattling indie riffs and the howling bar-room spirit of early Kings Of Leon, the band balance heaviness with hooks, antagonism with hedonism, and come out with 12 ear-worm nuggets that’ll burrow into your psyche and take root.
Listen to an exclusive stream of the record – released October 2 via SO Recordings – below with a track-by-track guide by Marcantonio and check the band out live when they hit the road from December 2.
Haat De Stanke
“It seems to me like every snake in control sits in the pockets of big business and the banks. I don’t know if they just relish in the misery of others or the network weeds out anyone with a soul, but I’m sick of the smell of these self-serving psychopaths muddying the good name of the human race.”
Suffer You
“Rennie wrote this in his underpants in his room, off the bat in one pass. That’s a risky start to any young song’s life. It’s upbeat self-mockery through someone else’s eyes. Fitting in and stirring the pot at the same time is a bit schitzy.”
Succubus
“It’s about being sold an obsession in stuff. What’s harmless to you feels like a love sucking demon bitch to me, quasi-supernaturally so, who leaves your front door open but your mind on pause. You give some away on a daily basis, ‘cos you never knew you had a choice.”
Junk DNA
“Bands write break up albums where every song is about hating some bitch and bad memories. This album’s me breaking up with hocus-pocus and suffering the consequences.”
Man You’re Wrong
“It’s a love song to our taboo’s and 150 million year old jewellery. Matt plays keys and wrote the lyrics in a nearby cafe, freaking out nice old people with coffee jerks, while eating a decent pasta Faggioli.”
Summer Cash In
“It’s a bastard dirgey gritpop song. We love sexy pop hooks and gutter riffs so, I don’t know, this shit happened. It’s mourning the loss of naivety while dancing around in sugar puff clouds. I like the contrast.”
Wash It Down
“Apathy has been encouraged. The working class has been conditioned to shut up and censor themselves with first school style clever kid resent. The market demands lowest common denominator weekend-lifestyle yolo garbage pop. We’re not really into in all that.”
Young & Numb
“Disenchanted youth through some washed up old dudes eyes. We aren’t given much space to think freely when we’re boxed in by heinous lies. I think it’s probably intentional because change hurts those with power the most. We have ideas force fed until we can’t fathom anything else.”
Dream Soda
“Dream Soda is manipulation distilled into edible form. It’s mind control. Like a Haitian zombie potion that’s FDA approved. It comes along all polluted and nasty and messes up your head. It was a shit joke first, then we realised what it meant and how it bled through the songs.”
Summoner
“This album took two months to record. We had no contact with the outside world except conjugal visits from loved ones. This song is like the reaction to that cooked up craziness.”
Strange Things
“I met a guy in France once who talked about seeing UFOs and chatting with oracles and he blew my stoned head clean off. It became very real all of a sudden and shook me up and kinda knocked me for six.
I came down from a bad dream and wrote this half asleep.”