Wednesday 21 March 2018

New Music: Introducing - Little Destroyer


I’ve always been a fan of bands who take their name and title a song after it, or is it the other way round where they take the title of a song and name themselves after it? Either way, I like it. Maybe it would be fun if solo artists did this as well. Time for Ed Sheeran to write a song called Ed perhaps? Mind you that sounds a little egotistical – but then Kanye West has already done it with I Love Kanye. I’m looking forward to hearing Sigrid’s tune Sigrid is Amazing or perhaps Taylor Swift’s I Am Swifty (So Hurry Up)? Maybe there's even an opportunity for Lorde to release Praise the Lorde?

Which brings me to Canada’s Little Destroyer. They of course have a song called Little Destroyer which was released on streaming services back in January. It’s one of a number of tracks they’ve put out over the last year or so from a forthcoming EP called Strange Future which is a potent blend of modern electronic pop with plenty of sharp edges.

Little Destroyer first came into being in the earlier part of this decade under the name Legs. Consisting of singer Allie Sheldan and brothers Chris and Michael Weiss, their original aim was to ‘score some festival tickets’. Legs was eventually shelved until the three regrouped as Little Destroyer, and the results with their new modus operandi impresses.

Immediate standout track is Rattlesnakes. Little Destroyer might look like a rock band in the picture above, but their sound is pop. Albeit Rattlesnakes is dark, hard-hitting industrial electronic pop tune that deals with the disillusionment that comes from the realisation that youthful partying ultimately just leaves an emptiness. Of the track the band have said: “It’s about the nights you become a mutant, and the mornings after. And it parallels the empty, dank & depressing vibe of a club, after last call, when the house lights turn on, to when the veil of fantasy lifts and you see it all for what is; a monstrous feedback loop set to empty.” 

Another track, Savages takes a danceable pop verse and then throws on the noise and distorted electronic drums for the chorus as shouts of “Run wild” burst out. It’s certainly more guttural than most pop music you’ll hear and therefore when you learn that the band have worked with Dave Ogilvie (Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy and Marilyn Manson) things make sense in terms of what they are aiming for in their sound. Katy Perry this is not.

For those of you like me in the UK, you have a chance to see Little Destroyer this Spring as they hit our shores in May to play Focus Wales Festival in Wrexham and Brighton’s Great Escape 2018, so they've finally achieved that initial aim of bagging some tickets.

Little Destroyer - Rattlesnakes (Video)



Little Destroyer - Savages (Video)

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