Bad Moves discuss the 'existential nausea', dark humour, and collective songcraft behind their new power-pop album, 'Wearing Out the Refrain'.
Words: Rob Mair.
"It's exhausting to live in an oppressive world, and it's exhausting because it doesn't stop. It fucks with your sense of time. Repetition does that too," says Bad Moves' David Combs, as we discuss the DC power-pop group's latest missive to a crumbling society, 'Wearing Out the Refrain'.
"The phrase I had come up with to talk about is 'existential nausea'," David continues. "Like, trying to articulate the feeling of having the spins, of feeling anxious, but at the same time make it part of the record, and just riding that line a little."
'Existential nausea' feels like the perfect descriptor for the group's socially aware, anxiety-ridden but also whip-smart, at times achingly funny, pop. Another phrase might be 'uncomfortable truths', as the group go to some pretty dark places and speak truth to power through rhyme and allegory. Their approach is certainly at odds with the notion that pop is something that is easy to consume and lacking in artistic merit.
Indeed, in the case of Bad Moves (completed by drummer/vocalist Daoud Tyler-Ameen, guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Katie Park, and bass player/vocalist Emma Cleveland), pop is merely a vehicle for delivery, and by marrying lyrical smarts with knowing musicality, they've delivered the album of their career, which pulls on this notion of repetition and is reflected in the album's title, 'Wearing out the Refrain'.
It's an album about being trapped in cycles and struggling to find a way out – but it's also about hope and community and responsibility.
"We purposely tried to make repetition both a kind of lyrical concept – like feeling trapped in cycles or feeling stuck in purgatorial spaces – but then have that bleed into the form of the songs, whether that's about lyrics repeating or a riff that won't go away for the entire fucking song," says David.
"That all helps to give a sense of the heaviness about those uncomfortable truths, as you put it. And part of that heaviness is that you don't know how to get away from it. You can hear that repetition on the opening song ['A Drowning Confession'] and 'Let the Rats Inherit the Earth'. They're like a motor that's propelling you, and each time it starts to break out of that cycle, we make it stop and then start all over again like you've skipped back to the start of the track."
Then there's the lyrical reflections. One song is called 'The Undertow', while 'A Drowning Confession' includes a refrain around 'the undertow' as it drags you down and the futility of fighting against it. Elsewhere, imagery of the Catholic church and Catholicism run riot, as do criticisms of authority and authoritarian regimes and consumer culture. It's ultimately a record crafted – sculpted even – to the point where every note or lyric feels deliberate and nuanced.
This can be seen in the group's astonishingly detailed approach to songwriting, which would make more individualistic artists run for the hills. A collective in the truest sense of the word – they share out vocal duties, meaning they don't have a nominated lead singer – while songwriting is tackled from the perspective of the group, with everyone free to edit and feed in suggestions.
