New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Florida's VIRGINITY is debuting a music video for "Bad Call" the first single off their upcoming Wiretap Records EP 'Death to the Party,' which will be released on June 5. "Bad Call" will be streaming on all digital streaming services starting tomorrow, May 8th.
Frontman Casey Crawford says, "I wrote Bad Call at a time about a year ago when I had a sore throat for what felt like three months and I was convinced I was gonna die, but I couldn't go the doctor because of my insurance situation. I was just consumed by fear constantly and I wasn't sleeping at all. The thing about me though is that I always do this to myself. I always feel like something bad is going to happen to me or my family, so I'm nearly always in an anxious state. I could never have guessed that its release would coincide with this shitty pandemic. I feel like the whole world feels anxious right now and like they themselves might have a bad call coming.
The video itself is a product of the quarantine. We couldn't get together as a band to shoot something, so me and my wife and kids did this whole shadow puppet concept as a way to keep busy and kill another day of boredom. It's not exactly a cheerful song, but I hope people can find some catharsis in singing along and headbanging to it. Sometimes it's okay to revel in the anxiety. Sometimes you have to lean into that feeling in order to find your way out of it. That's more or less what our whole new EP is about."
Casey Crawford is singing to you from the floor, and he wants you to know he means every word. Virginity's debut LP With Time is full of these explosive scenes: making a mental tally of the latest shift in scene politics, weighing the pros and cons of another drink when your partner's in the next room, and yes, wanting release from your inner monologue on the kitchen tile. It's a record that came together after 12 years of stepping away from music and returning to the Central Florida scene after a dozen annual wellness checks. Expect loud noise filtered through the bruised ethos of a Southern Baptist. Plenty of backsliding is as chaotic and tectonic as any forward motion.
Virginity plays punk written from an advanced age. Far-reaching influences all across the map call back to where Crawford began honing his voice, but it's in the visceral portraits of thirty-something crises where he found it. Crawford, bassist Jordan Shroyer, and multi-instrumentalist producer Jim Dreffen have been fueled by this cocktail of accidental luck and punch-drunk honesty since 2018. In 2019, The Alternative claimed With Time one of the best midyear releases, and Washed Up Emo gave props to their latest "New Favorite Band." If Virginity's charming from the kitchen tile, then it's only time before their courage to stand pulls the rug out from under everyone.
Death to the Party—Virginity's new EP for Wiretap Records, dropping a year to the day after With Time!—continues the band's fervent search for better health. Sure, they're uncovering more hurdles in unlikely places, like in the middle of a Piebald reunion ("FEST 17") or in the weeds of dismissive text messages ("Bad Call"), but the sonic jump displayed here is a deserved vaulting push.
Sometimes the greatest fears we face are other people, and sometimes they're ourselves. Virginity knows you can't live without both, so why not try to have some fun at the end of the day?
