They’re already one of the most enigmatic and prolific groups in the country, but just eight months after the release of their latest studio album, Perth’s Psychedelic Porn Crumpets have unveiled their newest single by way of the recent “Lava Lamp Pisco”.
Properly revealed a few weeks ago, the new track is the first taste of new material from the psych-rock collective since the release of February’s SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound. However, speaking to Rolling Stone Australia earlier in the year, new material arriving so quickly is hardly a surprise, with the group revealing they’d already been writing the follow-up to SHYGA!.
“[The new album will] be its heavy brother, which will be like the metal version I’ve wanted to create for ages,” explained frontman Jack McEwan. “It’s almost going back to my prepubescent Tool, Mars Volta, Karnivool-era of just being like, ‘Oh God, give me riffs!’ with that heavy Deftones kind of sound.”
And of course, listening to “Lava Lamp Pisco” indicates that this is exactly the sort of sound that the band had in mind during its creation, with its heavy riffs and powerful vocals not only continuing the classic Psychedelic Porn Crumpets sound, but also pushing it into brutal new territory.
“After SHYGA! I wanted to write something a bit heavier, get back to the Sabbath roots and chug on a riff for yonks ‘til it hums like a Novocaine mantra,” McEwan explained in a statement. “I wanted it to feel like it was constantly progressing, getting more chaotic with drones, swirling between dissonant layers and get the body jangling with a Tyson hook.”
“The lyrics weren’t intentionally meant to be dark, I’ve always liked to keep our music upbeat and positive but some days it felt like everything was blurring into one, waiting for life to resume into some sense of normality,” he continues.
“But what is normal? Change is good, variety is the spice of life and from these weird times I can truly say I’ve never been happier. So the Pisco of life continues, building with bulldozers, creating from rubble, chewing on bricks with a toothless optimism. It’s nice to feel rounded.”
In typical fashion, “Lava Lamp Pisco” also comes paired with a music video that utilises the talents of Bristol based animator Gina Tratt to capture the vibe of the track and also continue the sort of fantastical nature of the group that fans have come to love and respect.
“As soon as we saw Gina’s work we all really wanted to collaborate and work together on a project,” McEwan explained. “The idea was to follow the drone aspect of the track, build a playful landscape for midnight YouTube trippers to gobble up while outlining the expendable nature our mundane working routines; slice that up with some greedy corporate overlord whose main objective is to deplete the world of all resources for capitalistic gains and voila!
“You’ve got a Lava Lamp Pisco. Old mate Bezzy was the inspiration. Gina’s an absolute hero! We love what she’s created and hope that everyone enjoys our dark little episode.”
While information regarding whether “Lava Lamp Pisco” is set to appear on a forthcoming riff-heavy record from the group in still to arrive, in the meantime, it stands tall as another classic example of what Psychedelic Porn Crumpets are capable of.
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets’ “Lava Lamp Pisco” is out now.
