R U Afraid

“R U Afraid” feeds off R&B inspiration to make a yacht rock crooner

Boston’s Bat House self-identifies as psych rock. There are two types of psych rock:

Either you are an artist trying to revivify your Platonic ideal of a stoner band from the historical era of the LSD-fueled cultural revolution of the 1960s. There are plenty of great bands that do some version of this: Brian Jonestown Massacre, Evolfo, MMOSS, and more.

Or you are an artist that actually just ate some acid and you are trying to write a song (perhaps for the enjoyment of a fanbase that is also actively pounding doses. Think Flaming Lips or MGMT. 

Bat House sounds like the second case, which is liberating, because there are less genre expectations in this scenario. The band takes advantage of the freedom on their recent full-length Twenty Mule Team. The songwriting flirts with standard structures (verse, chorus, etc.) throughout the proceedings, but watch out for glitchy moments in which a song’s momentum gets sucked into the vortex of a pet musical preoccupation. Shades of DEVO here and there in the nervous tic percussion. Shades of MGMT’s “Flash Delerium” in the sense of a refusal to confine one musical emission to one musical idea. Shades of Dollar Menu-Sade. 

Our highlighted track “R U Afraid” feeds off R&B inspiration to manufacture a yacht rock crooner. All aboard the SS Owsley!

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