by Tom Alexander (@___alexd)
Surprise! Pet Fox has a new album coming out in just a few short weeks! If you’ve seen the band live recently, this won’t come as much of a shock because you already know two things: (1) the band has been playing these new songs live, and (2) these new songs are even better than the (excellent) songs featured on their 2018 self-titled record. Theo Hartlett (vox/guitars), Morgan Luzzi (bass), and Jesse Weiss (drums) have been incredibly busy – apart from their 2018 debut album, Hartlett and Luzzi also recorded 2018’s Ovlov record (TRU), and you can hear Weiss on that new stellar Palehound record (Black Friday). Today, Pet Fox have shared the release date for their upcoming album, Rare Occasion, along with its first single, “Swerving.”
About the song, Hartlett says: “’Swerving’ is about taking a situation, and either making it better or worse for yourself due to your own actions. I can be extremely impatient, and so I wanted to paint a picture of this horribly impatient driver that creates a mess for themselves due to their careless driving. It’s like shooting yourself in the foot; ain’t nobody’s fault but your own.”
The admission of impatience is telling, “Swerving” is less than 90 seconds long. However, in that minute-and-a-half, Pet Fox are able to squeeze in a lot: several different musical phrases, one of their strongest vocal melodies to date, a metaphorical narrative, a lead guitar solo/outro, and a killer leaning chord progression. Much like the name suggests, one of the highlights of the song is the veering chord change from the verse to the chorus. As the song plows forward, the band shift down a few notes, creating the sensation of an actual swerve. Go ahead and give it a listen, you’ve already spent more than 90 seconds readings this premiere! “Swerving” is one of Pet Fox’s very best, and Rare Occasion appears set to blow the roof off of this big dumb summer.
Pet Fox is currently set to release Rare Occasion on July 19th. A week later, you can catch them at the Maneka record release show at Alphaville in New York.