Black Country duo God Damn have revealed ‘Sing This’, the latest wrecking-ball pop anthem to be taken from their forthcoming sophomore album,Everything Ever, due for release on One Little Indian Records this September 23rd.
Premiered as the ‘Rockest Record’ on Daniel P Carter’s BBC Radio1 rock show this Sunday, ‘Sing This’ is crushingly catchy. ““This is a to the point, what is the point? End of the world, fist in the air, we don’t care, let’s be ‘aving ya’ POP BANGER,” says singer Thom Edward.
Set for release September 23rd via One Little Indian Records, God Damn’s second album, titled Everything Ever, follows the release of their sprawling, charged sonic assault of a debut album; 2015’s Vultures. This, alongside a blitzkrieg of incendiary live shows, has firmly established God Damn as one of the most thrilling and electrifying bands to lurch from the UK in recent years. Having recently given us a first taste of new music with the likes of ‘Ghost’, dubbed louder than “Black Sabbath having a screaming row with Nirvana” by the NME, and ‘Fake Prisons’, God Damn have also announced an album release show for September 23rd, headlining the Boston Music Rooms ahead of their UK tour with Relapse Records giants, Red Fang and Torche.
Produced by Ross Orton (The Fall, Drenge, Tricky, MIA) and recorded at McCall Sound Studio in Sheffield, Everything Ever sounds everything like God Damn, and yet nothing like Vultures – a debut album that came inspired by more than a handful of demons, and simultaneously rocketed the duo onto grand festival stages, and stadium gigs across the UK with the likes of the Foo Fighters.
These new songs arrive more upbeat (“these are still horrible, nasty songs though”, Thom is quick to insist), and unabashedly pop, in the same way Nirvana’s Nevermind was ‘pop’: prizing the value of a tune as a means to caving your skull in, and using artfully crafted verses and choruses to slip past your defences and detonate their malevolent little stories when you least expect it.
The reference points come thick and fast – blasts of garage-y psychedelic pop that give Ty Segall more than a run for his money (Oh No), brawny stomps that make like QOTSA back when they could fuck you up but good (Six Wires), even an infernal, soul-scraping blues that sounds like Tom Waits jamming with The Mars Volta (the nightmarish Violence). Moreover, though, they always sound like God Damn, even as every addictive nugget redefines what sounding like God Damn even means. Though vicious, metallic, and corrosive, these songs are still defined by that uniquely accessible quality that’ll have you skipping back to the start before a song’s even finished, just to see if they really are that audacious, if they really want to make music this catchy, and also this caustic: bubblegum cut with something nasty that will keep you chewing till your jaw turns to powder.