DEMONS is a heavy four-piece punk band from Norfolk Virginia that pull from dimensions of noise rock, sludge, and hardcore to generate a sound that has been described as “raw and confrontational fury.”
Today, we’re thrilled to give you an early listen of the band’s new EP ‘Swallow’, a blast of all-killer-no-filler force that will appeal to fans of music characterized by chaotic energy and deeply rooted aggression expressed in “beautiful balance between ultra-catchy, driving riffs, burly grooves, and angular dissonance.
For fans of: The Bronx, METZ, Every Time I Die, Converge, At The Drive-In
“The EP was the result of us telling ourselves to write songs that would last about one minute long.” – comments the band’s vocalist and guitarist Zach Gehring.
“It was in the middle of COVID and we didn’t really have much else to do, so we just continued to write. One minute songs are not too far out of our wheelhouse, but it was interesting to approach it with strategic intention.”
“Lyrically, it’s not conceptual at all. We have consistent but general themes, but it’s episodic. The title of the EP reflects a begrudged, perversely self-sabotaging, reconciliation to our lived experience.”
Commenting on the EP opener, Inauguration Day, singer/guitarist Chris Matthews says that this song is a lamentation.
“I had recently read about a project of collecting jars of soil from the sites of lynchings throughout U.S. history to commemorate the victims. One wonders what it might look like to add to that list of victims those who have been brutalized by modern-day, state-sanctioned White Supremacist murder. We named this ‘Inauguration Day’ as a working title; but it seemed fitting to keep it as a tongue in cheek reference to the empty promises of reform. How many more lynchings will be live streamed before we finally ‘burn it all down’?”
Vocalist/guitarist Zach Gehring elaborated on “Nothing at the Bottom”, the third track from the EP:
“The song is concerned, not with the existence or non-existence of some singular truth, but that even if it does exist or is present, we don’t have any access to it because our experience is so thoroughly mediated.
It won’t be ‘revealed’ no matter how creative people are in the conceptualizing (marketing) of a path towards it. I’m very suspicious of those claiming to have productive insight into that gap because I think it’s too often the source of manipulation, trauma, and hurt.”
‘Swallow’ sees release via cassette and digital on September 2nd via Knife Hits Records.
