Next month, Sydney alt-rock trio Middle Kids will release their new album Faith Crisis Pt. 1. The band recorded the LP in the UK, and bassist Tim Fitz co-produced it with Jonathan Gilmore, who’s collaborated with the 1975 and Rina Sawayama. We’ve already posted the early singles “Bootleg Firecracker,” “Dramamine,” and “Bend.” Today, Middle Kids drop another new one.
“Terrible News,” the latest Middle Kids song, is a bright, clean, rousing rocker with guitars that sound like keyboards, in the good way. Hannah Joy sings about trying to make it through a dark, stressful time — specifically, a bad stretch of the pandemic — and she makes it sound triumphant. Here’s what she says about the song:
There was a lot of confusion and information and rules and anger and people judging people and loss and distrust. I eventually felt so overwhelmed by all the noise, I couldn’t take it anymore. The guitars are kinda shouty, too, or maybe just urgent. I wanted to stack a lot of guitar layers to create almost a guitar choir. We got a friend, Brendan Champion, to play some brass on it, which really elevates the song as it marches along.
The “Terrible News video, directed by Nick Mckk and Claire Giuffre, is a single tracking shot of drummer Harry Day running across a cityscape in ecstatic slow-motion. I hope they didn’t have to do too many takes, since he’s pretty red-faced by the end. Watch it below.
Faith Crisis Pt. 1 is out 2/16 on Lucky Number.
