UK post-punkers Squid have extended their upcoming tour with 2024 North American dates and shared their new single, “Undergrowth,” along with a video game of the same name. Stream the track below.
Their tour, which is in support of their upcoming sophomore album O Monolith, kicks off next month in Wrexhman, Wales, and will steadily trek its way through the UK and Europe until the end of October. The quintet thankfully decided to add some North American dates for 2024, starting on February 2nd in Austin. Along the way, they’ll hit cities including Nashville, Brooklyn, Toronto, Chicago, and San Francisco before wrapping in Los Angeles. See the full itinerary below.
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“Undergrowth” comes after the album’s lead single, “Swing (In a Dream),” following a similar experimental path of expansive synth sounds, danceable bass notes, and hyperactive horns creating frantic atmospheres. Vocalist and drummer Ollie Judge does his duty with a catchy chorus and dark, yet relevant themes like morality, environmental demise, and the afterlife.
“I really got into animism, the idea that spirits can live in inanimate objects,” said Judge. “I was watching Twin Peaks, and there was the episode where Josie Packard’s spirit goes into a chest of drawers.”
He continued, “So ‘Undergrowth’ was written from the perspective of me being reincarnated as a bedside table in the afterlife, and how the thought of being reincarnated as an inanimate object would be dreadful. ‘This isn’t what I wanted/ So many options to be disappointed.’ Even though I’m in no way religious I don’t think anyone who isn’t religious is confident enough to not have had the fleeting thought of ‘Fuck, what if there is an afterlife? What if I’m going to Hell?’”
Such glum concepts play out in the band’s new game, also called Undergrowth. Developed by Frank Force, Undergrowth follows an English Folkloric storyline, which structurally falls somewhere in between Super Mario Bros. and Space Invaders. “Imagine the game itself as an interactive music video where gameplay and animation is synched up to the music and changes as the song progresses, moving into different phases,” Force said. You can play through the game here.
O Monolith is out June 9th via Warp Records. Pre-orders are ongoing.
Undergrowth Video Game Artwork:
Squid 2023-2024 Tour Dates:
05/05 – Wrexhman, WS @ Focus Wales
06/18 – Wicklow, IE @ Beyond The Pale
06/30 – Werchter, BE @ Rock Werchter
07/02 – Lars, DE @ Fusion
07/21 – Hertfordshire, UK @ Standon Calling
07/22 – Oxfordshire, UK @ Truck Festival
08/05 – London, UK @ RALLY 2023
08/16 – Portugal, ES @ Paredes De Coura
08/18 – Brecon, WS @ Green Man
09/02 – Vlieland, NL @ Into The Great Wide Open
09/05 – Cologne, DE @ Katine
09/06 – Esch-sur-Alzette, LU @ Rockhal
09/07 – Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique
09/08 – Utecht, NL @ TivoliVredenburg ROnda
09/09 – Hamburg, DE @ Knust
09/11 – Aarhus, DK @ Voxhall
09/12 – Copenhagen, DK @ Vega
09/13 – Berlin, DE @ Festsaal Kreuzberg
09/15 – Leipzig, DE @ UT Connewitz
09/16 – Zurich, CH @ Mascotte
09/19 – Milan, IT @ Santeria
09/21 – Barcelona, ES @ Sala Apollo 2
09/22 – Valencia, ES @ Jerusalem
09/23 – Madrid, ES @ Sala Copérnico
09/24 – Bordeaux, FR @ Rock School Barbey
09/25 – Paris, FR @ Elysée Montmartre
09/27 – Rouen, FR @ Le 106
10/13 – Bristol, UK @ SWX
10/14 – Bristol, UK @ SWX
10/16 – Birmingham, UK @ Town Hall
10/17 – Leeds, UK @ O2 Academy Leeds
10/19 – Manchester, UK @ New Century
10/21 – Glasgow, UK @ Barrowland Ballroom
10/22 – Newcastle, UK @ Boiler Shop
11/01 – London, UK @ Troxy
02/02 – Austin, TX @ The Parish
02/03 – Dallas, TX @ Dada
02/05 – Nashville, TN @ Basement East
02/06 – Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West
02/08 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
02/09 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
02/10 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
02/14 – Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
02/15 – Montreal, QC @ SAT
02/16 – Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Theatre
02/18 – Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall
02/19 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line
02/23 – Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall
02/24 – Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre
02/25 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile
02/27 – San Francisco, CA @ Regency Ballroom
02/29 – Santa Ana, CA @ The Observatory
03/01 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Belasco
