The new single ‘Long Line’ from Tāmaki Makaurau band Soft Bait is an angular juggernaut of attitude and swagger that is enticing with its shattering guitars and distant observant delivery. With a genetic code containing elements of The Fall, it’s an über cool slice of post punk that canters along with a throbbing bass and scyting guitars. Lyrically, it’s about the inherited things that weigh us down – as Josh Hunter from the band says:
It’s about self-concept, the beliefs and traits we inherit and hold onto, even when they don’t serve us.
There is also something singularly antipodean about the sound that recalls the visceral rawness of The Clean or The Bats, with a side serving of contemporaries Ringlets.
The track comes with a surreal video directed by Ryan Fielding, and made with the support of NZ On Air Music, which drops the viewer into a rusted-out dream where dystopia comes with a side of deep-fried cheese. Inside a flickering future, workers grind through shifts at a neon-lit pizza parlour, jacked into glitching VR headsets. In their heads: a band caged in an industrial dive, playing to a crowd of cyber bikers from hell.
Now signed to the legendary Flying Nun Records, the band will be releasing a new album entitled ‘Life Advice’ due out on 25 July which can be ordered here and through the link below.
They will be launching it with a special performance at the Flying Nun Records shop on Karangahape Road in Auckland. It’s free, and on Saturday 26th July at 3pm.
Soft Bait are Joshua Hunter, Patrick Hickley, Keria Paterson and Cameron Mackintosh.
Feature Photograph: Ryan Fielding
