It’s 2020 AD and it’s high time that we, human beings, as a species, admitted that our existence is a pestilence to the planet. To NYC punx Signal, it’s not self-deprecating so much as it is, well, honest, to say “I am a virus, “ on their ripper new track “Virus Carnival,” off their new EP Love w/o Moisture, out TODAY via Manik Statik. Vocalist Aida Riddle stokes the ghastly fire of self-awareness, coughing and hacking and heaving and bemoaning, “I am a virus and I want to replicate, I’m a virus and I want to recreate.” A whirlwind of stomp-and-scream guitar and bass barrel forth like a hellish tumbleweed of skeletons set aflame and sent to oblivion. Once in motion, the whole thing is a seething two-chord devil’s playground, with Carlos Salas’s guitar curdling the blood and infecting the mind, while Allie Brasch’s drumming punches the wind out of you with every unrelenting hit. This is the soundtrack blasting through the speakers of those microscopic submarine-cells carrying foreign agents into the bloodstream to poison the body with illness. Or it may very well act as the human race’s newfound soundtrack to its ever-quickening destruction of the planet we’ve so arrogantly overpopulated and tainted and spoiled. *I feel so fucking bad for Australia as I sip my fair-trade coffee, guilt-free because it says “fair-trade” on the cup.*
Photography by Hope Fitton, Handwriting and lyrics by Aida Riddle, Layout Design by Carlos Salas
Accompanying visuals directed by the band’s own Beck Kitsis (bassssss) depict a microscope’s view of the grotesque single-celled organisms of the song’s title. Old-timey hygiene PSAs intertwine with retroactive footage of Coney and suddenly sharing isn’t very caring, and it isn’t ALL fun and games, as you see what using that same milkshake straw can and will lead to, just as you know what Ronald McDonald (he’s in there, too) has done to the carbon footprint of 101 countries. I feel great about being human, don’t you?
Signal play their EP release show TONIGHT at DRTY SMMR, alongside Weeping Icon and Faccia Brutta. Shaun Sutkus (Pretengineer / ex-perfect pussy) and Ben Bondy (Burial Rites/ spit_ting) will be DJing before / after / between bands as LEASH.
