Avant-garde pop-rock band Drugs will release their debut album Episodic this Friday on Park The Van. A perfectly energizing driving-in-your-car soundtrack, the EP has received acclaim from Paste Magazine, Tower Records PULSE!, New Noise Magazine, and Punk News. Today, they’ve unleashed a trippy new single “A Twist of the Stomach” premiered with Northern Transmissions.
Guitarist/vocalist Joel Jasper shares that the song is, “An attempt to interpret the conflict with recurring cycles of consumption and mental processes. A twist of the stomach embraces rebellion and finding alternative thinking. Tie a knot in your stomach and pull from both ends. Put your brain in a dryer and set it to tumble. Hopefully when you wipe away the gunk you’re doused in you come out having gained some new perspective. If you’re not sure, go with your gut.”
In a sea of gentle singer-songwriters and derivative rock, Drugs is a rollicking safe haven, side effects may include getting stoked. The band’s debut collection Episodic was written and self-recorded in Long Beach, CA in 2018, by Joel Jasper (Guitar, Vocals) and J.P. Bendzinski (Guitar, Keys) joined by Vince Guitierrez (guitar/bass), Alan Connor (drums) and former bandmate Zach Mabry (drums). The forthcoming LP is an unruly and jagged musical terrain that casts aside traditional linear songwriting form in favor of a more abstract stream of consciousness style. Anger, uncertainty, reconciliation, wonder, anxiety are all wrapped up together. Despite their spontaneity and free-wheelin’ creative process, there’s one thing Drugs knows for certain says Jasper, the band’s main lyricist and songwriter, “I want to freak people out.”
