Melbourne-based band Beans, fronted by The Murlocs drummer Matt Blach, have just announced the forthcoming release of a new album, Boots N Cats, which will be out for all to hear on Friday March 1st via Fuzz Club.
This exciting new album bounces between organ-driven garage-rock wig-outs, breezy psych-pop and groovy funk instrumentals. Today, the band has released a single from the upcoming record; a kaleidoscopic track titled ‘Haunted’.
“’Haunted’ is about life’s ups and downs. It’s mostly based around a wide metaphor for everyone that feels like they aren’t or can’t accomplish enough.” Beans
Set to serve up eleven tracks of rhythmic garage-psych goodness, Boots N Cats is the third full-length album from Melbourne outfit Beans, and the first of two albums set for release in 2024.
The long-awaited follow-up to 2018’s Babble and 2020’s All Together Now, Boots N Cats is a record which finds Beans frontman Matt Blach placing percussion at centre-stage.
What emerges from the beat-first approach on Boots N Cats charts mutant garage-rock boogies and festival tent psychedelia, by way of blissed-out funk instrumentals.
The line is constantly skirted between a loose, carefree vibe and interesting, meticulous musicianship – never falling into the trap of taking itself too seriously.
It’s a sunny kaleidoscope of chugging guitars, driving bass-lines, soaring organs and warm, echo-soaked vocals – driven always by the tightly-wound rhythms and grooves that Blach has been in pursuit of since he was a kid: “The title of the album comes from me learning drums from my dad. He had a background of German heritage and during lessons would jokingly say ‘nein, boot’n’cats’n’ like a simple 1,2,3,4.”
The songs themselves, Blach says, are “mostly based on a state of mind or place of consciousness, intended to be open to the audience’s own interpretation as well as for my own self-release.”
Hence, “life’s ups and downs” are placed under the microscope on tracks like the record’s lead single ‘Haunted’, which dives head-first into the near-universal sense of being “haunted by the fear of failure.”
The aforementioned lead single, which is out now, arrives alongside a whimsical and captivating music video (created by Willem Kingma), filled with spooky psychedelic drawings which float and dance around the screen in a nostalgic VHS fuzz.
Beyond its drum focus, Boots N Cats also marks another first for Beans, in that it was entirely written and recorded by Blach himself.
Setting up a DIY studio in the garage of his North Melbourne home over the pandemic, Blach began working on the record in lieu of the full band (Jack Kong, Lachlan McKiernan, Vincent Clemenston and Mitch Rice) with whom he’d been jamming and tearing up Melbourne stages under a number of different monikers since they were all sixteen.
To celebrate the release of new single ‘Haunted’ and the announcement of upcoming album Boots N Cats, Beans will be playing a headline show at Melbourne’s beloved Brunswick Ballroom on Saturday December 30th, supported by Delivery and Hot Machine.
BEANS ‘HAUNTED’ LAUNCH SHOW
Saturday December 30th Brunswick Ballroom Melbourne
(w/ Delivery, Hot Machine)
TICKETS