Montreal’s Antenna93 just dropped their new single “Jack in the Green” through Long Vowel, just before their Pop Montreal appearance and an Ontario run. The band leans straight into folk horror references here, drawing from Robin Hardy’s 1973 film “The Wicker Man” and filtering it through their usual post-punk and noise rock framework.
The A-side, “Jack in the Green”, pushes harder into frenetic territory, flirting with tremolo-picked black metal textures alongside noise rock grit, art punk tension, and early 2000s indie sleaze residue.
The vocals are tortured and urgent, and the rhythm section locks into a tight, heavy interplay that keeps the atmosphere tense.
Lyrically, it circles mortality, obsession, and cycles of rebirth. The band explained that the song “features lyrics that cover themes of nature, death, and rebirth, backed by noisy and heavy-hitting post-punk sound,” with production and mastering that nod to black metal’s abrasive edge.
On the flip side sits “I Think I Could Turn and Live with Animals”, a contrast piece that starts by bleeding out the atonal guitars from the first track before breaking into field recordings of forests and fire. It drifts toward a folky coda on broken acoustic guitar, with violin from May Shukla (Death as it Shook You, The Vlcheks) adding another texture. The band described it as “a nearly 4-minute-long instrumental that begins with field recordings of forests, fire, and the woody and metallic sounds of a broken acoustic guitar… as these sounds build into a climactic inferno, the flames suddenly begin to subside, leaving a short English folk-inspired coda.”
The single was recorded with longtime collaborator Akira Satoh, mixed by Derek Robinson of the band, and mastered by Jordan Barillaro at No Fun Audio. Antenna93 keeps things within its tight circle of friends and local engineers, keeping the sound raw but deliberate.
The context around the release is Montreal’s broader DIY ecosystem, which has been producing wave after wave of restless underground bands. The city is often linked with bigger names like Arcade Fire or Godspeed You Black Emperor, but the post-punk and post-hardcore end remains restless, with groups like Works, Pnoom, Chop Sue Me, Palomine, Fresh Wax, and That Static filling small venues every week. Antenna93 sits in that orbit, feeding off the same noisy circuits but carving out their own folk horror-driven narrative this time.
Earlier this year the band also put out the album “Industrial Kitchen” on March 21, tracked between November 2024 and January 2025 at 8710 Parc in Montreal. That record featured tracks like “The Ladder”, “So It Goes”, and “Spine”, with additional guitar and synth from Satoh and a saxophone appearance by Sibtaen Humayun. It framed the group’s noise rock and post-punk base with mathy, jagged edges.
The new single ties back into that trajectory.
