Croydon disco-punksters Bugeye return with sophomore album The Shape of Things, a record that finds them sharper than ever.
Released via new label home INH Records, the follow-up to 2020’s Ready Steady Bang sees Angela Martin (lead vocals, guitar), Paula Snow (bass), Lex Giggs (guitar) and Suzy Gould (drums) serving an organic musical collage of guitar pedals, synths and samples chopped, glitched and pieced back together into a rollicking electro-pop jigsaw. Produced by Ash Workman (She Drew The Gun, Christine and the Queens), with co-production by Angela Martin on several tracks and mastered by Katie Tavini (Arlo Parks, Los Bitchos), it’s a record that bristles with energy.
I wanted the album to have these veins of electronic sound running through it, that point where organic and machine meet, and how the two can complement and elevate each other.”
– Bugeye frontwoman, Angela Martin
Album opener and single ‘Comfortably Numb‘, is a poptastic ode to missing the last train home and the euphoria and chaos that ensues.
https://youtu.be/PreNRi43QZ4?si=tB-vR4vuG14REhLM
The album is packed with gems including lead single, ‘This Ain’t A Love Song‘ with it’s epically sing-along-able chorus of
you’re a dick and you know it
as well as ‘The Best’ and ‘This Is What I Want’ , spiky guitars and synths mingling with driving bass, and a dash of Shampoo‘s cheekiness in the vocals.
‘Are We Still Breathing’ is a psychedelic plea for love featuring Goldfrapp-esque vocals and on ‘VIP’, you can actually visualise the disco balls swirling around and Madonna lurking in the corner.
I personally love the dangerous ‘Dirty Feds And Robbers’ with its hooky riffs, spoken words and Depeche Mode menace.
The album ends on a more satirical bent with ‘Welcome To The Team’ – a savage take on the soullessness of the office, wrapped up in grungy Nirvana-esque venomous non-chalance and ‘Model Behaviour’ about our slavishness to the data-driven world. Underneath it all is Bugeye’s ability to wrap heavy themes in riotous, give-no-fucks optimism.
We’re not asking for space anymore, we’re taking it,
says Martin and you can hear it in every track. The Shape of Things is Bugeye’s next chapter; queer, allied, unapologetic and considerably bigger-sounding, but with the raw, DIY edge that’s always made them so lovable still very much intact.
Music to dance through the apocalypse with.
Live Dates:
23 May – Quarters, Brighton (w/ Dodgy)
29 May – PocoLoco. Chatham
05 June – Bullet Festival, London
13 June – The Grace, London (Album Launch)
19 July – Dalton’s, Brighton 24 July – Trowbridge Fest