Against Me! spent their early years cataloging every possible emotion a drunk, broke Floridian punk could ever feel over crusty production. They’ve since expanded their sound and it only makes sense that they’d expand their scope to match. While the group’s primordial cuts would be right at home in a basement (if only we had them down south), tracks like “Haunting, Haunted, Haunts” sound like nothing more than the American West.
The riff chugs along like a punk-rock version of “Rawhide,” and the trademark shoutable chorus sounds like driving down a mountainside. Check it out up top.
The track comes from Against Me!’s upcoming album Shape Shift With Me. Frontwoman Laura Jane Grace says the Transgender Dysphoria Blues follow-up will move beyond her transitioning to life as a woman and instead focus on relationships through a trans lens.
“I wanted to write the transgender response to the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St., Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville and the Streets’ A Grand Don’t Come for Free,” she told Rolling Stone. “All those records are relationship records. There’s been an infinite amount of records talking about what love means from a cisgender perspective. I wanted to present the trans perspective on sex, love and heartbreak.”
Against Me! released “Haunting” as part of this year’s Adult Swim Singles series, following releases by Protomartyr, D∆WN, Ryan Hemsworth and DJ Paypal. For more of an insight into how Adult Swim picks its artists, take a look at this interview with the channel’s music mastermind Jason DeMarco from last year.
(Via Rolling Stone)
