The return of RVG has been one of the most pleasing music stories of early 2023.
The renowned Melbourne post-punk band announced last month that their new album, Brain Worms, was imminent, with their third record set for release in June.
Brain Worms is the highly-anticipated follow-up to 2020’s Feral, which itself followed the band’s equally excellent debut album, 2017’s A Quality of Mercy. Following pulsating lead single “Nothing Really Changes”, RVG have today shared “Squid”, a mesmeric cut that wonderfully lays into its surrealistic songwriting.
“”Squid” is a song about going back in time and stepping on a Tiktaalik and then going back to the present but you have the same job, the same problems you had before except you’re a squid,” lead singer Romy Vager explains of the absurd concept. “We jammed it on a whim and it ended up coming out really well. I left a large chunk of the lyrics till the last minute, finishing them off in Finsbury Park at 6 in the morning before I could get into the studio and record my vocals.”
The lyrics were worth the wait. “I didn’t intend to be / Some hideous turquoise thing / Some hideous third thing,” Vager snarls at one point, solemnly pondering the life she used to lead. “Don’t go back in time / It’s not worth it!” she later howls, and the desperate sincerity emanating from her vocals slices realism right through the heart of the absurdity.
Make no mistake: based on its leading singles, Brain Worms will be the sound of a band at the height of their rock powers. “RVG Have Crafted the Record of a Lifetime with ‘Feral,'” this very publication declared in 2020, and it would be quite something for RVG to repeat the trick just three years later.
Following the release of their new album, RVG will headline The Forum in their home city as part of RISING Festival on Wednesday, June 14th. With Danish post-punk icons Iceage supporting and never-forgotten indie rock outfit Batrider returning for a once-in-a-blue-moon show, it should be one of the highlights of the festival. More information about the show is available here.
RVG’s “Squid” is out now. Brain Worms is out Friday, June 2nd via Ivy League Records (pre-save/pre-order here).
