After a five-year pause, Florida Man returns with its third album, Plastique, slated for release on April 4th via The Ghost Is Clear Records. The album follows last month’s grooved-out single “El Rey” and arrives with the industrial-tinged, post-hardcore/punk crossover single “Dot Gov” – available to watch and stream.
“Dot Gov” opens with a foreboding, glitching sample that quickly gives way to a fierce, driving punk anthem. Sci-fi lyrics paint images of AI-driven destruction and the collapse of a futuristic authoritarian regime. Jim O’Connor’s gruff, feverish vocals cut through punchy rhythms and layered electronics.
The track shifts into a softer, percussive interlude before surging into an expansive, half-time ending marked by controlled chaos. The accompanying video captures the band’s high-energy performance through a Y2K lens, complete with retro operating system glitches.
Originally formed in 2017, Florida Man debuted with a self-titled album that quickly built a following in the southeast. Their sophomore effort, Tropical Depression (2019), earned praise from Revolver, NPR, BrooklynVegan, and others. Plastique continues their evolution by infusing razor-sharp riffs, fuzzy bass lines, and maniacal vocals with new layers of electronic experimentation, percussion ensembles, and catchy chorus hooks. The record comprises nine songs, all mixed by Taylor Young at The Pit Recording Studio.
The recording process was split across several locations: drums and bass were captured in Charleston at Coast Records with Matt Zutell; guitars were tracked in Clinton, CT at The Radar Studio with Will Benoit; and vocals were self-recorded in a cabin in the woods of St. Matthews, SC. Mastering was handled by Nick Townsend at Infrasonic Sound, and the album artwork comes from Little Snake.
Andrew Barnes, handling guitar, keys, samples, and vocals, explains, “We felt like the various definitions of the word plastique represented the sound in many different ways – it’s aggressive and explosive, but slicker, shinier, and more graceful than our old music.”
Plastique is available for preorder on vinyl via The Ghost Is Clear Records.
The band is: Andrew Barnes, CJ DeLuca, Jim O’Connor, and Jonathan Peace.
