“Clench To Stay Awake” is The Garden’s newest single from their upcoming release and fourth studio album Kiss My Super Bowl Ring out on March 13 via Epitaph Records. The song begins with a riff that reminisces between Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” honest tangent, the guitar riff and tuning in the very beginning of “Enter Sandman” by Metallica and of course, “Eighties” by Killing Joke. Brothers Wyatt and Fletcher Shears have always managed to incorporate and experiment with a variety of sounds and genres but been most recently dwelling and producing alongside the lines of rapid breakbeats highly influenced by jungle and drum and bass. Regardless, the duo has developed a sound of their own from easy and catchy punk singles like “I’m A Woman”, to other efforts that are sonically incomparable to anything else out there (“All Smiles Over Here :)” or even “Call This # Now”), the key has always been the collaboration of combining monstrous and thumping breaks with almost always bass, and samples from intertwined, and what it seems as uncaged genres along their career. Nothing is too pure or holy for them if the sound needs to be created. More on this sort of personal approach to the lyrics, were the group talks about an illness, dealing with acute pain, and overcoming the distraught of undisclosed heath issues.
Tell me that I’ve gotta clench to stay awake
Tell me that I’ve gotta clench the pain away
Here comes the pain, I can blow it away
Find a way to cope for another day
Sharp pain coming on, I’m blacked out
Next time it comes, I’m not gonna back out
As the introductory effort to the Kiss My Super Bowl Ring, the duo retreats, for now, from their autonomous sound of ignited rave jams. Submerging themselves into the continuous experimentation and cross pollination of genres and styles. “Clench To Stay Awake” borderlines in the unexpected: a hardcore break, a melodic combustion, toyish percussion and a kick in the face waiting to happen if you’re not careful.
Catch The Garden performing live at Warsaw on Friday, April 17. ‘Kiss My Super Bowl Ring’ is out March 13 via Epitaph Records.