The Perth-come-Melbourne trio have returned with their first new music this year.

Chances are that if you’ve heard Hideous Sun Demon or caught them live, you won’t have forgotten them. Complete with Fuzzy riffs, wailing vocals and sudden tempo shifts, the group have always seemed to be on a mission to never let the audience get too comfortable or too familiar with them. Keeping the performance energy at maxed out and an anything-could-happen, edge-of-seat vibe is what would be top of the band’s CV, if they had one.

Today they continue that trend with their latest single ‘Gimmicks’. Ditching the doom for a new sound that sits somewhere between Eddy Current and Joy Division high on speed, with the vocal stylings of Johnny Rotten – the version of him that never formed P.I.L. and moved to the outer suburbs of Melbourne. Lyrics take centre stage with singer Vin critiquing the state art and music, whilst perhaps asking questions of the band and their direction:

“We had grown pretty bored of our old sound. We had kinda gotten into this formulaic approach to songwriting that was defined by fuzzy guitars and doomy riffs. We were eager to adopt a wider breadth of influences, especially since Jake and Vin had bonded over their love of post-punk and new wave in their youth,” the band says of the release.

“So we’ve started playing with cleaner guitars, writing songs that have a higher focus on tight playing rather than balls to the wall noise, as well as reimagining and broadening what our sound can be. That’s essentially what ‘Gimmicks’ is.”

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