In the sprawling urban landscape of Dallas, where one is more likely to encounter a ten-gallon hat than a goth band, Battery Licker emerges as a delightful anomaly, as they gleefully distill the restless spirit of 80’s and 90’s rebel youth and blend it with the gritty vibes of industrial and post-punk. Imagine The Damned and Type-O Negative had a lovechild with the languorous spoken-word stylings of Southern Culture on The Skids or the Butthole Surfers.
Battery Licker delves into the existential angst of our post-internet world with an unpretentious flair. Their music serves as a conduit for connection: a raw, unvarnished outcry of the disillusioned and confused. It’s the voice of a generation once hailed as the future, now seen as a charmingly optimistic misstep. There’s comfort in their tunes, however: a reminder that it’s okay to be a little lost.
Cutter kicks off with electric fervour, deep diving into the realm of introspection. The lyrics paint a portrait of a soul wrestling with identity, weighed down by self-doubt and the harsh judgments of the world. They toy with the idea of self-harm as an escape from this emotional maelstrom; a poignant depiction of someone trapped in a love-hate relationship with their own being and mirrored in their dealings with another. It’s a song that lays bare the intricate dance of internal conflicts and emotional upheaval.
“There is a desire for a sense of reality induced by violence, and there is some striking images,” says the artist. “‘I wear your hate on my back’ captures the visceral reality one finds in Homeric expression—but the quickness of the beat interferes too much with the meditative content hiding behind performative rage. It’s a blue-collar rage—the title has multiple meanings and one is a reference to a fictional stone cutter from 1970s Indiana, just at the onset of the Midwest’s industrial decline—which reinforces its performative nature, because it’s the kind of rage that alcohol, pain medication, or reality TV presidents have been known to cure. True metaphysical rage of the kind hinted at in the rest of the lyrics is not so easily assuaged or stilled.”
The video, filmed by Chris Way and Alison Moore and directed by the band, is a straightfoward, if eerie, performance channeling the raw energy of the band. Check it out below:
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