I don’t know about the rest of you, but I had had just about enough of waiting for Mansfield’s favourite sons Violent Soho to put some new material out. It’s been two years since their mammoth last LP Hungry Ghost exploded radio stations across Australia, the band embarking on national tours and festival slots all around the country and over the oceans. We hadn’t heard a lot regarding new material, but when the band posted a cryptic Facebook status earlier in the week urging us to tune in to Triple J at 4:20pm (heh heh heh) this afternoon, we had a feeling they weren’t here to fuck spiders. And just like that, the heavens opened up and we were given a brand new Violent Soho single, Like Soda.
It’s an audio stream ripped straight off of the airwaves and so the sound quality is kind of sketchy at best, but you don’t have to worry about that for too long at all because the crisply-produced studio version is going to be released digitally tomorrow via the label with the Midas touch, I Oh You.
The song itself is constructed in quite a typical Soho fashion, some gentle guitars and frontman Tom Boerdam’s unmistakeable raw vocals opening proceedings, building up with an almost Blink-182 esque guitar riff before the rest of the band kick the fuck in, a deliciously dirty solo from guitarist James Tidwell punctuating the latter half of the track. They’ve very much picked up where they left off with Hungry Ghost here, which is absolutely 100% fine by us.
Like Soda is officially out tomorrow in time to be spun ad nauseum this weekend. The band have also announced a trio of launch shows for the single before they unleash all of their fury on next year’s Laneway Festival. They’re in limited capacity and there’s nothing better than a sardine tin Soho show, so you’d best be whipping your overworked credit cards out at 9am on the dot tomorrow morning when tickets go on sale. They’ll be available for the following dates and venues on the band’s website:
Thu, Oct 22nd: The Zoo, Brisbane
Fri, Oct 23rd: Oxford Art Factory, Sydney
Sat, Oct 24th: The Corner, Melbourne
Check out our happy snaps of Violent Soho from last year’s show at The Metro here!