The undisputed king of party rocking mayhem Andrew W.K signed with metal label Napalm Records back in 2020. Now straight up, I have been a huge AWK fan since the release of debut album I Get Wet 2 decades ago. My assumption was a heavy metal influence would seep into his next release. So what does new single Babalon unveil?
In some ways, exactly as I suspected. But with a total about turn to what I anticipated. Make sense? No didn’t think so. I thought we were going to join the Municipal Waste ‘party thrash’ movement. Instead the party rocking has been retired and we have a significantly darker prospect. Judge for yourself below.
We get a creepy, sinister guitar riff to open, with synth’s replacing the classical piano usually associated with the former party god. I mean when we get this as an opening statement to the music video you know shit has gotten serious:
Due to his strong personally caused psychological disassociation, Andrew W.K. wished that this video in no way endorses a belief in evil.
Honestly I am not really sure what the hell any of that means. Disassociated personalities, violence, insanity. Its got plenty of the Muse style epic layering, and heaps of that trademark Andrew W.K. energy. The epic composition is such a far cry from the straight up power chord bashing party punk rock of old. It’s such a sharp change in direction I think I need a stiff drink and a few days to process WTF I just witnessed!
The project’s conceptual director, Michael R.C. commented on the Babalon music video:
“With Babalon, we wanted the audience to slink back down Andrew’s tower and storm the gateway to the city of pyramids with him, or someone who looks like him. We had all been working really hard to lay thee gagging monster down, so it would dwell forever in the chasm of frivolous forming. All these images come from there, from where it’s going. That’s where we put Andrew.”
“Consciousness hasn’t opened reality, only nightmares. Zone-out now.”
From the Napalm Records press release:
At the beginning of February 2021, Napalm Records and the inimitable god of partying, ANDREW W.K., announced the impending release of a massive new single, Babalon, and today, that new single is officially released and available worldwide (listen/order here), in both physical and digital formats, with an accompanying music video.
If you don’t remember the old ways of the king of party rock, allow me to remind you!
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