Ramping up to the July 17th release of their INCREDIBLE new album ‘Genetic Cabaret’, Southend rockers Asylums have released an absolute BANGER of a new single, ‘Platitudes’. The accompanying video opens up the band’s private home video vault, traveling around the world, playing festivals, recording in the studio with Steve Albini, writing…….all the stuff they can’t do together right now and miss a hell of a lot.
“It’s going to sound weird, but I initially wrote ‘Platitudes’ using an old 808 drum machine and a synth, I was listening to loads of electronic film music at the time because I wanted a more angular and dystopian feel for ‘Genetic Cabaret’ than our previous album ‘Alien Human Emotions’.” divulges frontman Luke Branch. “By the time we started developing the track as a band this song was sped up to almost hysterical levels and the fuzz pedals came back out. Lyrically it’s certainly influenced by some of the empty political messaging that was going on in early 2019 but spliced together with some topics present in the David Cronenberg, J. G. Ballard and Stephen King work I was obsessing over during its incubation”
On July 17th, in the midst of a global pandemic, Asylums will release their latest masterpiece ‘Genetic Cabaret’ through the bands own label, Cool Thing Records. Their genius follow up to 2018’s acclaimed ‘Alien Human Emotions’ was recorded in the privacy of a world-class studio with legendary recording engineer and sound alchemist Steve Albini (In Utero by Nirvana, Rid Of Me by PJ Harvey, Surfa Rosa by Pixies; too many stone-cold legends to parenthesize).
Whilst recording, the band split their time between Chicago, whose big honest soul superseded the garish horrifying pantomime of Trump’s America, Norway and Germany, where Brexit shame was temporarily suppressed like a bad nightmare. The 4 piece, now isolated back on the floundering isle of chaos that is home, nails bloody from picking the real from the farce and bursting at the guts with tales of runaway adventures, magpie wisdom, and furious hope. Asylums have big new things to say – pandemic or no pandemic.
Originally described as “Blur if they were raised in Seattle or signed to Sub-Pop” or “the excitement you felt when you first heard Buzzcocks or Manics”, the development of Asylums has taken them into a brand new sonic space – a combination of anger and experimentalism, of whispered secrets and musical mood swings. For those that need a “for fans of…” reference – think Fontaines DC and METZ gene-spliced with The Flaming Lips and Spiritualised.
Moving on from the neon ride of the first album ‘Killer Brain Waves’ and the bold exploration that was ‘Alien Human Emotions’, ‘Genetic Cabaret’ is a seething tandem of beauty and ire. To theme it is to expect a riot to keep within the lines but look forward to political puzzling from protesting hearts, a pop-punk pop at the establishment, a demand for something else. This is a band of brothers who have realised they are not boys anymore. Gone are the days of kicking stones about their seaside town. Asylums have learned how to articulate their hearts and weaponise their conscience. The prelude to parenthood (vocalist/guitarist Luke Branch recently became a father for the first time) brings a new vital urgency to their work. These are the times to demand more, not just for yourself, but for the future.
“Genetic Cabaret was written during the most turbulent time I’ve ever experienced socially and politically in the UK,” says Luke Branch. “I’d stay up late every night binge-watching the news and political punditry and write songs all day. During writing and rehearsals, my wife fell pregnant and the huge emotional impact of that got me thinking about the world I was bringing our child into from a new perspective. I examined political history, human biology, generational divides and emerging technology in equal measure. The resulting album feels leaner musically, harder-edged and with anger and empathy in equal measure”
It’s been a huge 18 months for Asylums. As recent recipients of the prestigious and hard-to-score PRS Momentum Fund, their next leap forward seems gilded, greased, and good-to-go. Current singles ‘Catalogue Kids’ and ‘A Perfect Life In A Perfect World’ finding warm homes at BBC 6 Music, Radio X and Kerrang! Radio, as well as playlist adds at Deezer and Spotify and nods from The Independent, Kerrang! NME and Louder Sound have only increased expectations and excitement for album number 3.
Asylums story is the blueprint not only to a DIY existence in music for 2020 but to an understanding that what others perceive to be weaknesses (mental health challenges, making guitar music in a climate of pop, the low financial return of recording and touring in the streaming era) are actually the strengths that keep band, and their following, going when many others have stopped. Asylums are the ground-stomping stallion of the stable that is Cool Thing Records, a creative collective of relentless DIY happen-makers based in Southend, a seaside town with an illustrious musical history of working-class trouble-makers and dreamers.
Plugging into the universal WTF, and still frothing with the fire that makes their live gigs feel like a javelin attack of lightning-bolt joy and rollicking effervescence, Asylums aren’t staring into the abyss, they’re lighting torches. They’re passing them around. They’re telling us to go with them; angry, curious, purposeful, hopeful.
Track Listing:
1: Catalogue Kids
2: Platitudes
3: A Perfect Life In A Perfect World
4: A Town Full Of Boarded Up Windows
5: Clean Money
6: Who Writes Tomorrows Headlines?
7: The Distance Between Left & Right
8: The Miracle Age
9: Adrenaline Culture
10: Yuppie Germs
11: Genetic Cabaret
12: Dull Days
Asylums are the founders of the UK independent record label Cool Thing Records (Est 2014). The home to Asylums, Indian Queens, Beckie Margaret, The Horse Heads, Suspects, Private Jetlag and BAIT. 2020 sees a packed release schedule from the label, with Asylums leading the charge.