UK/Austrian punks release the latest track from their upcoming album ‘Baby’.
Petrol Girls have released another acerbic and insightful new track from the forthcoming album Baby. Vocalist Ren Aldridge spoke about the track. “Lyrically, ‘Preachers’ is my way of kicking back at this preachy, saintly, holier-than-thou vibe you get sometimes in radical left communities. “I get very frustrated by the lack of nuance sometimes, and the way people seem so much more interested in punishing individuals than building resilient communities of care. And I hate the way that women and marginalised genders are held to such a way higher standard than cis-men.
“I’m absolutely not saying that we shouldn’t criticise each other or that we should let things like sexual violence slide. But I think we have a lot of questions to ask ourselves collectively in terms of how we deal with harm, conflict, and abuse and differentiate between them.
I’ve been learning so much about transformative justice, which is where abolitionist politics and activism against gender-based violence really come together, and I was very inspired by Adrienne Maree Brown’s book ‘We Will Not Cancel Us.’
Baby, recorded with producer Pete Miles at Middle Farm Studios, is set for release on 24th June via Hassle Records. It opens with 28 seconds of noise before launching into Preachers, a song that sets the tone for the rest of the album both sentimentally and musically. “There’s a lot of preachers here, but I don’t see no saints.” Aldridge sings through a smirk you can practically hear. “Lot of fingers pointing, palms sweating under red paint.”
The self-aggrandising nature of call-out culture and moral one-upmanship is put on ‘blast’ from start to finish. Lyrics like “feeling dead important in the comments” stand out, while a post-punk instrumental veers between angular riffs and a power chord chorus.
During the writing process, guitarist Joe York became interested in “minimalism and madness.” Taking influence from everything from electronic music and hip hop to New Wave bands like Talking Heads in terms of groove, repetition and playfulness. All of which are put in the shop window on Preachers.
“We wanted to make sure the first track was one that showed this different musical direction because as well as moving away from sanctimoniousness, politically and vocally, we also wanted to make the music more stripped back and fun,” Aldridge explains.
Petrol Girls are on tour throughout the UK in July.
Petrol Girls UK Tour Dates:
07 July Le Pub – Newport (headline)
08 July 2000trees Festival – Cheltenham
09 July BST Hyde Park with Pearl Jam – London
10 July The Green Door Store – Brighton (headline)
New album Baby is out 24th June. Pre-order HERE.
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