by Max Freedman (@anticlimaxwell)
Eagle Daddy formed at Rutgers-New Brunswick, but its origins can be traced back to two neighboring towns in southwest New Jersey. Before Mount Laurel residents and middle school friends Shawn Fitzgerald, Andrew Gerber, and Shannon Moore headed off to college in the same city that’s birthed beloved DIY punk acts such as Screaming Females and Fond Han, they started a high school band that would, in New Brunswick, evolve into Eagle Daddy. Shortly after, they met Marlton native Brian Seidman, completing the band’s lineup and cementing its growing post-punk, noise, and art rock influences. Following an EP, an LP, a move to the same City of Brotherly Love where they’d spend their high school days escaping suburban ennui, and a moderate shift in band member roles, these four are now set to release Eagle Daddy’s newest EP, House, on cassette January 6 via Jersey tape label Rat Brain Records. Named as such since all its song titles are household objects, the EP is the first to be released since Gerber moved entirely to synth from guitar in the band’s live shows, and the second to feature vocals from both guitarist Seidman and bassist Fitzgerald. Post-Trash is excited to be premiering House’s final track, “Staircase,” which miraculously fits Moore’s almost unbelievably intricate percussive patterns into a 4/4 groove. Fitzgerald and Seidman’s head-spinning bass-and-guitar interplay further rattles, all while Gerber’s growling synth turns the whole thing into a nauseous meditation on apathy, dismay, and questioning.
“Staircase” has been part of Eagle Daddy’s live set since at least a month before its 2015 debut LP, You Should Try Jogging More, showcased a band favoring less predictable arrays of tempo and dynamic shifts over the straightforward yet unapologetically raw sounds of its debut EP, 2014’s cleverly titled Rock N’ Roll Is Dead And I Wish I Were Too. It’s an exemplary instance of House further navigating down Eagle Daddy’s winding, frantic road of aggression, technical prowess, and the intentional destruction and ignorance of existent musical structures. Crowds tend to react quite strongly to it in a live setting: it’s not infrequent for audience members to just let their bodies fly as the breakdown that approaches with a minute left kicks off, as this moment exhilaratingly relieves the previous two minutes of intensifying musical stress. Lying somewhere between the fire alarms of Pile’s music and the unendingly impressive disorientation of Palm’s songs, “Staircase” is grounded in reality by Fitzgerald’s speak-shouted musings: “Is it possible not to care? Is that transcending or simply lying? Is it in the stars?”
For such incisive and humorous lyrics, Fitzgerald’s words aren’t too mused-over. “I just write how I feel or what I’ve been thinking about lately,” he reveals, and this same introspection tends to be the origin of an Eagle Daddy song as well: “I hear it in my head,” he explains. Fantastic songwriting is clearly in the stars for Eagle Daddy, a band that’s likely to grow endlessly as it continues scratching away at the musical walls restricting it to one House.
Eagle Daddy’s House EP is out January 6 via Rat Brain Recordings, and the band will celebrate with a pair of release shows:
01/05 - Philadelphia, PA @ New Planet w/ Thin Lips
01/07 - New Brunswick, NJ @ The Panopticon w/ Rhea