RVG share new single ‘Squid’ from their new album, Brain Worms, out June 2nd on Fire Records. All throughout Brain Worms, it’s apparent that RVG are in very fine form. Named for the hyper-recognizable experience of each day bearing witness to a world of private obsessions being aired out in the infinite, Brain Worms may not be wholly new territory for the Melbourne post-punk band and its lyricist/frontwoman Romy Vager, but this time around, there’s a newfound radical acceptance glistening overtop everything.
New track, ‘Squid’ powers through the walls of realism and out the other side, imagining what might happen if we were to go back in time, step on something, and… become a squid. And yet, Romy Vager sings lyrics this absurd with an earnestness and desperation so real that you may suddenly feel feelings about it.
On Brain Worms, bandmates Reuben Bloxham (guitar), Marc Nolte (drums), and Isabele Wallace (bass) are flawlessly adept in bringing Vager’s songwriting to life.
Recorded in London at Snap Studios with James Trevascus (Billy Nomates, Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, The Goon Sax), all ten Brain Worms tracks surge with lush sounds and clear intentions — and the magic of an acoustic guitar once owned by Kate Bush, given to her by Tears for Fears (who, legend has it, wrote “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” on it).
After a momentous first five years — finding critical acclaim for their 2017 debut A Quality of Mercy, landing on countless end-of-year Best Of lists, and playing alongside some of the world’s biggest acts — RVG released their second album Feral as the world was locking down in 2020. Feral was hailed by Rolling Stone Australia as “the record of a lifetime,” but between the four bandmates, Brain Worms is the most confident they’ve ever felt in RVG. They’ve moved past their influences, pushed themselves, and tried new things. And they made a record they can, by all accounts, call their best.
“Hype is scary. After two years of COVID it felt like the hype had gone down so we were able to just do stuff,” says Vager. “This time around we were like, this is what we’re doing, we’re taking control, we’re taking risks, and we’re going to make an album that sounds big so that when we hear it on the radio we want to hear it again. If we could only make one more album, it would be this one.”
RVG will be coming stateside for SXSW in March. Following SXSW, the band will join Billy Nomates in April across the UK and then return to Europe for a run of dates in France, Netherlands and Germany.
‘Brain Worms’ is available in LTD Edition Blue Vinyl, Black Vinyl & CD. Out 2nd June.
