Another gritty pulse just broke the silence: Bronson Arm unleashed the video for “Casket Schwagg,” the title track of their upcoming sophomore album, set to land May 9th via Learning Curve Records.
The track comes with a new video, a stark, Lynchian fever dream that drags you into a shadow-soaked haze.
Blake Bickel’s baritone guitar churns like a machine chewing gravel, Garrett Yates’ drums slam down with cold precision, and Bickel’s voice rises above, sharp and unyielding. It’s a hex, aimed square at the gut of “narcissistic bigots” too smug to own their mess. “I wanted to write a relatively straightforward, anthemic ‘curse’ of a song,” Bickel says, “that demands responsibility they’ll never take.”
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It’s blunt, it’s raw, and it doesn’t blink.
The track itself is a bare-bones bruiser—noise rock stripped to its sinew. That baritone thrums low and ominous, a dark thread weaving through Yates’ martial beat, locking into a rhythm that feels like it’s marching you somewhere inevitable. Bickel’s shout carries a melody that hooks without softening the blow. “We’re not a politically charged band,” he clarifies, “but this is a politically charged album.” No cheap gimmicks here—just a spark of fury that’s been simmering too long to ignore. “Someone has to do it,” he adds.
“There needs to be a sea change.” The video doubles that weight: a hallucinatory stumble through a macabre fantasy, all muted colors and creeping dread, like David Lynch decided to soundtrack a bad trip. It’s a fitting frame for a song that’s less about preaching and more about planting a boot in the dirt.
This is the first taste of Casket Schwagg, the Kalamazoo duo’s follow-up to their self-titled debut, which rattled the underground last year. That 2024 record—also on Learning Curve—set the blueprint: Bickel’s moody strings and Yates’ austere drumming, a two-man assault that hit like hammers on anvils. They leaned hard into minimalism, letting silence hang heavy before shattering it with cathartic hooks. Louder Than War called it “an unstoppable flex of muscles we never knew existed”; we pegged it as “controlled chaos… minimalist and monumental.”
“Casket Schwagg” the song sets the tone, but the full slab—due in May—spreads wider. Tracks like “Permitted to be Omitted,” “Wrong Energy,” and “To Live Deliciously” hint at a brew of martial rhythms and doomy tones, while “Flaming Pram” and “Drain the Coffer” sound like they’re itching to ignite. “Supine Twist,” “Vestigial Tail,” “Obscenity in the Milk”—the titles alone twist with a cryptic edge, suggesting something primal and warped bubbling under the surface. Bickel sums it up: “Raw and noisy with a huge bottom end you can feel just as much as hear.” It’s not noise for its own sake; there’s euphoria laced into the chaos, melodies clawing up through the muck. The duo’s still just baritone guitar, drums, and voice—no fluff, no excess—but they’ve honed it into a blade that slices deeper this time.
Kalamazoo’s no stranger to grit—bands like Cloud Rat and Tonguecutter churn in the same orbit—and Bronson Arm’s rooted there, not just passing through. Bickel’s a mastering engineer shaping the scene’s sound; Yates runs The Run Off, a DIY spot keeping it alive. Their debut was a warning; this feels like the reckoning.
Back in 2023, they tipped their hand to IDIOTEQ, listing noise rock gems—BEDTIMEMAGIC’s Sleep Together, FACS’ Still Life in Decay—that showed where their heads were at. Now they’re not just nodding to the frayed edges; they’re tearing into them.
When Casket Schwagg drops, expect no apologies—just a curse that lingers, loud and unrepentant. For now, the title track and its video are the opening shot.
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