Bodega have announced a new album, Rot in Helvetica, that will be out next week, July 18, via Chrysalis. The album is actually attributed to NODEGA, but Bodega have been playing a few of these songs live for a while now. It is a bit of a stylistic pivot from post-punk into loud-fast punk, but their railing against screen-addled consumerism remains.
The band say: “Kim Gordon once observed that the punk ethos is all about saying ‘No’. We wrote and played this set of old school capital P ‘punk’ high on the influence of oldschool hardcore, skate punk, and early thrash but injected it with melody just to make sure to alienate the trad mohawk sect as well as the endless sea of post-punk copycats (most of which have nothing to do with anything resembling ‘post punk’ in spirit). This album is an attempt to liberate the wisdom, stupidity, and joy of the teenage state of mind. Despite myriad flaws, the platonic Teenager has a very real and profound access to spiritual truth that one shouldn’t neglect. The pure at heart Teenager, for example, wouldn’t jump through imaginary hoops to justify or ignore state-sponsored genocide. They’ll just (loudly) say ‘NO!’.”
The first single from the album is “Quantify,” a ripper with lyrics like “Everything you see it must be rated / Everything you think is aggregated / Resources will all be allocated / Minds that disagree can be persuaded.” Listen to that below.
There are two Nodega release shows in NYC and both are free: July 16 at Alphaville with Consumables, and July 18 at Rough Trade Below. The band are also playing London’s Shacklewell Arms on August 2.