Bad Suns Share Dreamy New Single 'Mystery Girl'
' More than a decade since the arrival of their debut album, 'Language & Perspective', Bad Suns still know how to bottle the warmth of summer in California in three perfect minutes of pop rock.' - Rolling Stone Best Songs Of The Year So Far
California indie-pop band Bad Suns unveil their sparkling new single 'Mystery Girl ', the latest taste of their dance-inducing new album Accelerator out on August 8th via Epitaph.
In an upbeat cascade of dreamy riffs and a lively rhythm section, Christo Bowman 's wistfully reflective lyrics signify a crossroads for the lead singer and guitarist. Through a diaristic stream of consciousness, he remembers his coming-of-age years while facing the inertia of fatherhood: ' There's this beautiful new chapter in my life unfolding, and there's mixed emotions that come with it, ' he says.
'' Mystery Girl' is a song about my teenage years, past relationships and experiences, and being a young person who is ultimately just looking for love. '
'Mystery Girl'
Since 2012, Bowman (vocals/guitar), Gavin Bennett (bass) and Miles Morris (drums) started making music together as teenagers and went viral almost immediately with their magnetic blend of indie-rock and '80s synth sheen. After four hit albums, the trio reached a point where they needed to recalibrate and recenter if they wanted to continue. Recording their exuberant 2023 EP Infinite Joy was a cleansing experience that served as fuel for Bad Suns and set them on a thrilling path forward into making Accelerator, which comprises 12 new tracks brimming with dance-pop hooks and poignant lessons learned.
' We saw the Infinite Joy EP as a new beginning for the band. I felt this yearning once again,' reflects Christo Bowman.
' Accelerator being our fifth album, our first studio album as a trio, and the first album of my 30s, we knew that this was going to be really important. We didn't want to take that lightly. We asked ourselves, how do we live up to the occasion? We saw this album as a mountain we wanted to climb.'
Bad Suns ushered in the first preview of Accelerator with the grooving single 'Communicating', currently at #21 on the alternative rock charts and recently named one of Rolling Stone 's Best Songs Of The Year So Far. They compared the track to ' a late-night cruise down the highway with the windows down, the slinky bass thumping, and overthinking in overdrive. ' Anthemic opener 'Slow Karma' revealed a riveting pop turn for the band, showing how Accelerator is still steeped in the original DNA that made Bad Suns a feel-good viral sensation with early hits like ' Cardiac Arrest.' The rushing pop melodies may mirror Accelerator 's title, but its lyrics are filled with stop-and-think moments where Christo surveys his past actions and makes the intentional choice to embrace personal growth and impending fatherhood.
' My 20s were a challenging time with a lot of peaks and a lot of valleys, ' he says. ' There's a lot of joy, a lot of mistakes. This album is ultimately about finding the strength within yourself to assess the damage that's been done and make the changes that you need to in order to take control of your own life.'
As Bad Suns move into their latest era, one filled with exciting personal and professional milestones, they've never been more harmoniously aligned. ' While making this album, I turned 30, I got married, I found out I was having a kid, ' the frontman muses. ' Going to the studio every day and being in the room with the guys, I had this sense that I'm going to look back and know that was probably one of the best times of my life. '
Slow Karma
Ready To Take Flight
Mystery Girl
Communicating
Why Am I Like This?
Madeline
Just Like Magic
Back To Zero
What's Best For You
Postcard
Wait In The Car
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a day ago
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Bad Suns Share Dreamy New Single 'Mystery Girl'
' More than a decade since the arrival of their debut album, 'Language & Perspective', Bad Suns still know how to bottle the warmth of summer in California in three perfect minutes of pop rock.' - Rolling Stone Best Songs Of The Year So Far California indie-pop band Bad Suns unveil their sparkling new single 'Mystery Girl ', the latest taste of their dance-inducing new album Accelerator out on August 8th via Epitaph. In an upbeat cascade of dreamy riffs and a lively rhythm section, Christo Bowman 's wistfully reflective lyrics signify a crossroads for the lead singer and guitarist. Through a diaristic stream of consciousness, he remembers his coming-of-age years while facing the inertia of fatherhood: ' There's this beautiful new chapter in my life unfolding, and there's mixed emotions that come with it, ' he says. '' Mystery Girl' is a song about my teenage years, past relationships and experiences, and being a young person who is ultimately just looking for love. ' 'Mystery Girl' Since 2012, Bowman (vocals/guitar), Gavin Bennett (bass) and Miles Morris (drums) started making music together as teenagers and went viral almost immediately with their magnetic blend of indie-rock and '80s synth sheen. After four hit albums, the trio reached a point where they needed to recalibrate and recenter if they wanted to continue. Recording their exuberant 2023 EP Infinite Joy was a cleansing experience that served as fuel for Bad Suns and set them on a thrilling path forward into making Accelerator, which comprises 12 new tracks brimming with dance-pop hooks and poignant lessons learned. ' We saw the Infinite Joy EP as a new beginning for the band. I felt this yearning once again,' reflects Christo Bowman. ' Accelerator being our fifth album, our first studio album as a trio, and the first album of my 30s, we knew that this was going to be really important. We didn't want to take that lightly. We asked ourselves, how do we live up to the occasion? We saw this album as a mountain we wanted to climb.' Bad Suns ushered in the first preview of Accelerator with the grooving single 'Communicating', currently at #21 on the alternative rock charts and recently named one of Rolling Stone 's Best Songs Of The Year So Far. They compared the track to ' a late-night cruise down the highway with the windows down, the slinky bass thumping, and overthinking in overdrive. ' Anthemic opener 'Slow Karma' revealed a riveting pop turn for the band, showing how Accelerator is still steeped in the original DNA that made Bad Suns a feel-good viral sensation with early hits like ' Cardiac Arrest.' The rushing pop melodies may mirror Accelerator 's title, but its lyrics are filled with stop-and-think moments where Christo surveys his past actions and makes the intentional choice to embrace personal growth and impending fatherhood. ' My 20s were a challenging time with a lot of peaks and a lot of valleys, ' he says. ' There's a lot of joy, a lot of mistakes. This album is ultimately about finding the strength within yourself to assess the damage that's been done and make the changes that you need to in order to take control of your own life.' As Bad Suns move into their latest era, one filled with exciting personal and professional milestones, they've never been more harmoniously aligned. ' While making this album, I turned 30, I got married, I found out I was having a kid, ' the frontman muses. ' Going to the studio every day and being in the room with the guys, I had this sense that I'm going to look back and know that was probably one of the best times of my life. ' Slow Karma Ready To Take Flight Mystery Girl Communicating Why Am I Like This? Madeline Just Like Magic Back To Zero What's Best For You Postcard Wait In The Car
The Spinoff
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Or perhaps it references the torn t-shirts that rock writer Lester Bangs claimed the late Pere Ubu founder Peter Laughner died for 'in the battle fires of his ripped emotions.' Or maybe it points to the trio's ferociously destabilising take on melodic post-punk and high velocity hardcore, signposting their debt to the kind of year zero aesthetics that would reignite wild improvisational songforms with muzzy garage Messthetics in a way rarely extrapolated this side of Dredd Foole & The Din. Either way, Lifeguard stake their music on the kind of absolute sincerity of the first wave of garage bands, garage bands that took rock at its word, while simultaneously cutting it up with parallel traditions of freak. The half-chanted, half-sung vocals are hypnotic. Songs aren't so much explicated as they are exorcised, as though the melodies are plucked straight from the air through the repeat-semaphoring of Asher Case on bass, the machine gun percussion that Isaac Lowenstein plays almost like a lead instrument, and that flame-thrower guitar that Kai Slater sprays all over the ever-circling rhythm section. Indeed, the trio play around an implied centre of gravity with all of the brain-razzing appeal of classic minimalism, taking three-minute hooks into the zone of eternal music by jamming in – and out – of time. And then there are the more experimental pieces – 'Music for Three Drums' (which surely references Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians), 'Charlie's Vox' – that reveal the breadth of Lifeguard's vision, incorporating a kind of collaged DIY music that fully embraces the bastardised avant garde of margin walkers like The Dead C, Chrome, and Swell Maps. But alla this would be mere hubris without the quality of the songs. The title track 'Ripped & Torn' suggests yet another take on the title, which is the evisceration of the heart. Here we have a beautifully brokedown garage ballad, with the band coming together to lay emotional waste to a song sung like a transmission from a lonely ghost. 'Like You'll Lose' goes even deeper into combining dreamy automatic vocals with steely fuzz on top of a massive dub/dirge hybrid. 'It Will Get Worse' is pure unarmoured pop-punk crush while 'Under Your Reach' almost channels the UK DIY of The Television Personalities circa 'Part Time Punks' but with a militant interrogation of sonics that would align them more with This Heat. Plus the production, by Randy Randall of No Age, is moody as fuck. Are they really singing 'words like tonality come to me' on 'T.L.A.'?! If so, it would suggest that Lifeguard are one of those rare groups who can sing about singing, who can play about playing, and who, despite the amount of references I'm inspired to throw around due to the voracity of their approach, are capable of making a music that points to nothing outside of the interaction of the player's themselves. And sure, there's a naivety to even believing you could possibly do that. But perhaps that's what I have been chasing across this entire piece, the quality of openness that Lifeguard bring to their music. You can tell these three have been playing together since junior high/high school: the music feels youthful, unburdened, true to itself, even as it eats up comparisons. Lifeguard play underground rock like it might just be as serious as your life, but with enough playful ardour to convince you that youth is a quality of music, and not just of age. With a sound that is fully caught up in the battle fires of their own ripped emotions, Lifeguard make me wanna believe, all over again.
