New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Bad Moves is exhausted, and they're willing to bet you are, too. On their long-awaited upcoming album, Wearing Out The Refrain, the DC power-pop band explores the repetitive cycles of life that elicit existential nausea - a phrase they define as "the moments in which we find ourselves overwhelmed by an oppressive sense of pointlessness."
Through hooky guitar pop and interlocking, layered vocals, Bad Moves tackle these sorts of complicated themes with sardonic glee. Whether it's the grinding gears of capitalism, the Sisyphean pursuit of emotional growth or the shifting balance between social change and regression, it feels like life keeps telling the same bad joke, and the punchline never lands.
The band explains: "One such moment of social regression, the rise of legislation aimed at dismantling protections for queer and trans people, stands out to us as singularly alarming. While cloaked in the familiar jargon of moral panic, laws aimed at policing gender expression and silencing discourse on sexual identity seek to erase our identities, to dehumanize and push queer and trans people into the closet. They make the world a more dangerous place to live."
Out today, new song "
Hallelujah" stands out as an anthem in support of queer and trans people's right to simply exist. Several members of Bad Moves grew up in religious environments (some progressive, some not so much), so the hypocrisy of using faith as a tool to repress queer identity feels personal. They continue: "As we push through cycles of desperation, our answer to those seeking to deny anyone's true self-expression can only be SHUT IT DOWN."
Wearing Out The Refrain comes on the heels of recent tours with Cheekface and Ekko Astral, as well as two recent singles previewing the upcoming record.
That includes the big, existential splash of "Let The Rats Inherit The Earth," and their brilliant holiday-bummer anthem "New Year's Reprieve."
Based in DC, Bad Moves is four friends making upbeat power-pop about anxiety and identity. After years knocking around the basement punk scene in bands of their own, guitarists Katie Park and
David Combs, bassist Emma Cleveland and drummer Daoud Tyler-Ameen began playing together in 2015 with a few goals in mind: songwriting would be collaborative, singing would be everyone's job and arrangements would be generously staggered, blending voices and ideas to avoid centering any one member.
On its self titled 2016 EP, Bad Moves explored bleak adulthood, writing about bad jobs, corrupt leaders, frustrated dreams and gentrifying cities. Tours of the U.S. and U.K. with friends Jeff Rosenstock, Martha, Nana Grizol and The Spook School brought a widening fanbase and a sharpening sound, with new material that dug into the wilderness of childhood and how its lessons ripple out later in life. As anticipation grew for a full-length album, the band made a breakthrough appearance on the Cartoon Network's
Craig of the Creek, voicing their animated selves in an episode about the show's lead characters putting on their first DIY concert.
Tell No One, released in 2018, was Bad Moves' debut LP: 12 songs about confronting old secrets and stumbling into self-discovery, wrapped in a sound that hometown weekly Washington City Paper called "exuberant catharsis, the type of pop that makes you breathe deep and shout." The album was recorded at Philadelphia's Headroom Studios, and produced by Joe Reinhart.
In 2020, the group paired up again with Reinhart to produce its second LP, Untenable, which nudged Bad Moves' sound to suit a slightly darker outlook. A bit of noise, dissonance and snarl crept into the periphery. Those spikier sounds framed lyrics about the numerous places where instability erodes our lives — tipped wages, service industry jobs, our self-image as groomed for public consumption via social media.The title is a nod to the overwhelming feeling of unsustainability that permeates life, whether at work, at home, or on the planet. But here and across Bad Moves' discography so far, there's a melodic sweetness there too, and a bit of hope. Uncertain times can also be an opportunity for change.
