PHOTO CREDIT: GABE LONG
BEEN STELLAR
SWEET // NEW SINGLE // OUT NOW // WATCH
SCREAM FROM NEW YORK, NY // DEBUT LP // 14 JUNE
“The band share vivid descriptions of a city where sometimes words don’t do the setting justice” NME
“Jangling guitars and swaggering drums flash off each other with all the grit and vitality of steel blades clattering in combat” SO YOUNG MAGAZINE
“A raw and magnetic sound that strikes mercilessly” PASTE MAGAZINE
“A scorching live act” CLASH
BEEN STELLAR have shared a third track from their forthcoming debut Scream From New York, NY album out on 14 June via their new label Dirty Hit. White-knuckled and cutting, Sweet is a nihilistic anthem that builds from melancholic 90s dream pop to guttural, rough-hewn rock with the band’s frenetic, interlocking rhythms threatening to disintegrate at any moment.
“We were all intrigued by the simplicity of the verse, it felt like something we would usually shy away from,” shares vocalist Sam Slocum. “I really tried to let the music inform the lyrics and to not overthink what was coming from the song’s natural feeling. One of the first lines that came to me was “We’re speaking when we don’t know what to say”. I think in close relationships, the most pure moments shouldn’t need to be spoken about. And life in general, the things that matter the most and bring people together shouldn’t warrant many words, if any. Words complicate feelings sometimes.”
The new single follows February’s lead single Passing Judgment, a masterful deployment of unbearable pressure and violent relief, and March’s All In One, a ferocious late-album highlight that sees band member Laila Wayans’ powerful, tectonic drumming come to the fore.
Scream From New York, NY is a remarkably brutal debut – bruised and volatile, it captures an image of ‘20s New York that’s unrelenting and harsh, where tenderness is a finite resource burned up by the machinery of the city and human connection is a luxury product. Leaving behind the driving shoegaze of their early recordings, the NYC-based five piece tap into the disaffected sound and spirit of New York luminaries such as Sonic Youth and Interpol, and the nihilistic, yearning cool of Iceage and Bends-era Radiohead, striking upon a sound that’s fearsome, buffeting and beautiful at the same time. A tidal wave as viewed from beneath. Preorder the album on vinyl, CD and cassette from Dirty Hit HERE
SCREAM FROM NEW YORK, NY TRACK LIST
- Start Again
- Passing Judgement
- Pumpkin
- Scream From New York, NY
- Sweet
- Can’t Look Away
- Simmer
- Takedown
- All In One
- I Have The Answer
Been Stellar recently supported The 1975 on a major European tour and will return to the UK and the EU throughout the summer before heading back to the States for their Lollapalooza debut.
MAY
Wed 15 SOUTHAMPTON Joiners
Thu 16 BRIGHTON The Great Escape Festival
Sat 18 AMSTERDAM London Calling
Mon 20 BRISTOL Louisiana
Wed 22 MANCHESTER Yes (Basement)
Thu 23 LONDON The Lexington
JULY
Fri 26 SHEFFIELD Tramlines Festival
Sat 27 OXFORD Truck Festival
Sun 28 SUFFOLK Latitude Festival
As its wry title implies, Scream From New York, NY is a record about what happens when language fails – between friends, partners, a city and its citizens – and the primal scream you might let out when words just don’t work anymore.
Like many other dyed-in-the-wool New York bands, Been Stellar are transplants. Guitarist Skyler Knapp and vocalist Sam Slocum first met in their fresher’s year of high school a decade ago; members of the cross-country team, they bonded over a t-shirt Skyler was wearing and decided to start jamming together. In Michigan, they began performing under the Been Stellar name, but it wasn’t until the pair began studying at NYU and met Brazilian-born guitarist Nando Dale, bass player Nico Brunstein and drummer Laila Wayans that a sound started to form. Despite working in wildly disparate styles – Nando and Skyler shared a love of British bands like The Cribs; Nico was making electronic music and Laila rave – the group bonded over a shared sense of humour, forming a motley crew based more on emotional compatibility than any rigid ideas of a shared artistic sensibility.
In many ways, the band formed to fill a need. By the time Been Stellar found themselves in New York, the last vestiges of the city’s famed 2000s and 2010s DIY underground had been ground down to nothing and the scenes that did exist felt impenetrable. So the band put on their own shows, renting spaces and collaborating with friends to build the world they wanted to inhabit.
Determined to break new sonic ground, they embarked on a relentless practice schedule, even renting scrappy studios on days off during tours with Fontaines DC and Shame. After befriending him at SXSW the band tapped up producer Dan Carey (Wet Leg, black midi, Squid) to help coalesce the disparate elements of their sound that had been percolating: forceful, driving physicality; pop classicism; gnarled beauty; and a rich emotional core.
The resulting 10-song album announces Been Stellar as gimlet-eyed chroniclers of contemporary youth, staring through noise and confusion into the dark heart of modern life. These songs embody the spirit of a city that makes and breaks its inhabitants on a daily basis – an irony befitting the album’s tone: their preternatural ability to capture the disconnection that haunts New York with photorealist detail might just be the thing that vaults them into its pantheon.
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