2022 epitomised by BAIT single 'Drama Drama Drama'
"It’s the end of the world in my head coz I haven’t had a text back in under six seconds now."
So here we are - fed up and fucked up - when two weeks in, 2022 is summed up with blasting digipunk empathy:
‘DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA’ - the new single from BAIT (out now on Cool Thing Records) sounds like an aural anxiety attack.
Composed and visualised by Michael Webster and conceptualised with band members Jim Webster, Luke Branch and M R E (who also produced) it's taken from the debut BAIT album, 'Sea Change' which will be released on 1st April; All Cool’s Day.
This LP is a product of Planet Pandemica. A self expression of experiencing whatever this is, ring side at the sea side (literally, from Southend in England’s Depeche Mode county of Essex).
“This is the most intense and frenetic track from the record. Many of us have an expectation to receive instant gratification, which was amplified through lockdown. This is a ‘note to self’ to snap out of the impatient frenzy and that there are people that have bigger problems… I really did see a man walking into town carrying a plastic bag with no trousers on” - Michael Webster - BAIT
BAIT is a band that has become a long distance relationship. For eighteen months it’s lived in the cloud, with a rope around its neck. We’ve all had enough restrictions, but restrictions force you to work with what you’ve got. Restrictions are precisely what BAIT needed to breathe out, sink to the bottom and propel itself back into the light of day clutching a new record: ‘Sea Change’
It’s a digital post-punk lockdown docu-record which watches the clock, gets the jitters & lashes out just like the rest of us. It’s an internal monologue that accounts the anxiety, the struggles, the pressures experienced living by the sea during an international trauma..
Photography by Danny Rowton
Lead single, ‘DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA’, is a fast paced, pounding drill hammer of psychprose that bruises like a repeated punch. The lockdown years of sledgehammering rhythms driving realistic observations home (Nova Twins, Benefits, Bob Vylan, Sleaford Mods and more) really work for those of us who are adapting to Dystopia from the blueprints of mad-seeming sanity learned from disaster movies.
Rage into your machine with this nightmare reflecting lyric video by Simon Moore at Burke & Hare. Basically, if you’re aware of what we’re living through, this makes a semblance of sense :
No stranger in TheZineUK meandering tales, the BAIT sound is a Prodigy-dusted mix of industrial dance beats and heavy metal punk raged into the spoken word of Michael Webster, previously of indie rockers, Baddies, as well as being bass player in Asylums and co-founder of Cool Thing Records.
Image by Danny Rowton
“The pandemic brought a huge amount of challenges to music makers but you gotta keep swimming! We had to adapt, overcome barriers and learn new skills to conceive and give birth to a new record!
I’m looking forward to releasing the results… our new record ‘SEA CHANGE’ is out 1st April 22 on Cool Thing Records.”
At a time when even sightings of potential alien space craft are shrugged off by Earthlings with a collective "meh", Drama Drama Drama is a theme for anybody who is totally whelmed (simultaneously overwhelmed and underwhelmed) by this rubbisher moderner life.
With incessant incandescant word beat and industrial punk drive, Drama Drama Drama is in your face to nag your head and is definitely #AnotherCoolThing
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