Gilla Band, the Ireland-based post-punks formally known as Girl Band, have shared “Backwash,” the second single from their forthcoming album Most Normal, out Oct. 7 via Rough Trade Records. The band also announced that the single will be available as a Big Love exclusive 7” with a limited 120-copy run.
The follow-up to “Eight Fivers,” the band’s second release under their new moniker, “Backwash” is another hard-hitting dose of buzzing noise-rock. With blitzkrieg bursts of sound splicing through the sparse, yet steady percussion in the chorus, it’s a Kafkaesque barrage of static that blindsides you. A jumble of unorthodox imagery resulting from their stream-of-consciousness songwriting style, Gilla Band produces an accidental love song rife with contradictions like, “Overthought it / Still was excited / Still needs improvement / But that was perfect.” As the song ultimately dissolves into a deluge of muffled industrial-sounding distortion, Gilla Band delivers an avant-garde masterpiece.
“The initial idea for the whole album was that it would loosely sound like a dream,” singer Dara Kiely explains. “We didn’t really stick to the brief but it lead us down different sonic avenues. ‘Backwash’ is one of the few tracks where the words represent a dream-like circumstance. The lyrics are from a stream of consciousness rant, weird imagery and all that. The track is about attraction—fancying someone and not knowing what to say exactly. It’s an indirect love song, knowing you like someone but can’t quite articulate it. Thinking that you have already expressed your feelings, but like waking up from a dream you’ve forgotten what you actually have said or felt.”
Watch the Mortis Studios-animated music video for “Backwash” below, and find a complete list of Gilla Band’s upcoming tour dates here.
