Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever have shared a lively new single titled ‘My Echo’, contrasting a jaunty, solo-heavy sound with soul-baring lyrics about feeling trapped in isolation.
Written during one of the extended lockdown periods that Melbourne experienced in 2020, the track tackles themes of claustrophobia, anxiety and the damaging effects of a reliance on technology. In a press release, singer/guitarist Fran Keaney said it’s “about being surrounded by phone screens, computer screens, TV screens, paranoia and loss of time and place”.
‘My Echo’ arrives alongside a video directed by longtime collaborator Nick Mckk. It’s a relatively simple clip, following the band as they jam out in a sprawling, open warehouse. Their surroundings are only visible when illuminated by thumping strobes, with the band – at some points clad in papier-mâché masks representing caricatures of themselves – performing in total darkness for the bulk of the clip.
Take a look at the video below:
Expounding on the song’s creation, Keaney explained that the final version of ‘My Echo’ is “pretty faithful to the very first rough recording”. Punctuating the song is a soaring, layered guitar solo, which is driven by one of Keaney’s fellow frontmen, Tom Russo. “Most of Tom’s leads were improvised,” he continued, “but they became the DNA of the song.”
‘My Echo’ comes as the third single shared from Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s forthcoming third album, ‘Endless Rooms’, following the release of ‘The Way It Shatters’ in February and ‘Tidal River’ last month. The album itself is due out on May 6 via Ivy League / Sub Pop.
Although they’ve never shied away from more story-based songwriting, the band have asserted that ‘Endless Rooms’ is “almost an anti-concept album”. On the background of the record’s title, the band noted that it is a nod to their “love of creating worlds in [their] songs”, saying they approach each track as if it were “a bare room to be built up with infinite possibilities”.
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever are currently on tour throughout their native Australia, performing at The Gov in Adelaide tonight (April 6) after a gig in Canberra yesterday. The long-delayed run will finish in Hobart tomorrow, before the band embark on a tour of Europe and the UK with Stella Donnelly. That stint will kick off in Madrid on Friday May 20, sprawling through to the last week of June.
The following month, they’ll begin a headline tour of North America – catch all of their upcoming tour dates here.
In a four-star review of the band’s last album, 2020’s ‘Sideways To New Italy’, NME‘s Rhys Buchanan said the record “might sound like sun-splashed indie for good times, but there’s a great deal of angst buried within”.
“[T]his is clearly also the sound of a band excited to be in the studio together; warmth and friendship seeps through every note,” it read.
