Lead singer KT’s groove-heavy cadence is found on ‘New Case,’ which, with its walking bass line feels like a punk cousin of something funky Quincy Jones once cooked up. That the song is both blazingly melodic while sounding authentically fuzzy is credit to the album’s producer Ty Segall.

The track comes with an incredible Claymation video by the animator Cissi Efraimsson.

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The track finds KT desperately trying to keep her feelings of hopelessness at bay. Alongside a thunderous beat and scalding guitar riffs, she confronts the constant spectacle of social injustice that has become a daily drudgery for her generation: “How many times I gotta tell ‘em that our pockets cryin’?… How many people you gon’ lie to and say you’re not lyin’?” Her vicious vocal performance spirals over and over like the endless depressing news cycle, but it’s not a signal of defeat; it’s a sharp critique, maybe even a threat, to the powers that be: “And I’m tired of the darker news / And I’ve tried warning you / It feels right scaring you.”

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As KT puts it, there’s never been a moment when she didn’t have rage. As the singer of Upchuck, the Georgia punk band whose music is as sharp as a scythe, KT has felt fierce energy inside her well before she had the band as an outlet through which to channel it. As a Black woman in America, rage has been the tint on the window through which she’s had to view the world. The experience of listening to Upchuck is to feel a distillation of that existence, all of its pain, sorrow, anger, and fear translated through raw punk music.

Perhaps, after so many years of wading in the muck, KT is over it. Upchuck’s Domino debut is I’m Nice Now. But don’t mistake newfound niceness for weakness. It’s self preservation. “In this world of constant distractions and stressors it’s important to keep your mind, body, and spirit sane and sound enough to continue through this seemingly never-ending fight,” she says.

Today the band shares two singles from the album, ‘Forgotten Token’ and ‘Un Momento,’ both with videos directed by Ian Cone.

On ‘Forgotten Token,’ KT addresses the sudden loss of her sister during the recording of I’m Nice Now and the way in which she was undervalued in her life and, in her death, by some, she became commodified. The song is a perfect expression of the mixture of anger and exasperation meticulously transformed into a taut punk song. “I just feel/Cuz I’m Black/It gets stacked/In a lost closet/Forgotten token,” sings KT. Of the song she says, “It’s just like another soft yell/yearn for remaining aware of how you’re treating others and what people mean to you. You can lose things easily and not care, thinking you’ll just get another one. But people aren’t objects.” The video underscores the dark side of gentrification and, in keeping with the song’s familial theme, features cameos from KT’s mother, grandmother, and brother.

‘Un Momento’ is one of three songs on the album featuring vocals from Chris. It starts with a thunderous drum roll, one that comes from his experience growing up performing cumbia music. He aims to blend that sound with Upchuck’s traditional punk to fuse something unique. The video co-stars his father and his son and is a celebration of his North Atlanta neighborhood of Little Mexico. The day after the video was shot, the neighborhood was raided, door to door, by ICE; people in the area are still afraid to go to work and leave their families. “Dame un momento,” Chris sings on the track, “para sufrir… para vivir… para pensar.. para volar.” Give me a moment, to suffer, to live, to think, to fly.

I’m Nice Now:

1. Tired
2. Plastic
3. New Case
4. Fried
5. Homenaje
6. Kept Inside
7. Pressure
8. Un Momento
9. Forgotten Token
10. Kin
11. Lost One
12. Slow Down
13. Nowhere

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The band shares its scorching new single ‘Plastic,’ produced and mixed by Ty Segall and mastered by Heba Kadry, and with a video directed by Ian Cone. In a two-minute blitz of scuzzy guitars and spitting vocals, ‘Plastic’ contains the key to Upchuck’s ethos of authenticity: in a PVC world of hollowness and artificiality, you have to fight to find what’s real. “Algo me hace falta (‘something is missing’),” Chris howls on the Spanish-language bridge. The answer, exhorts KT, is to “know classics – know truths – know reason – know you.”

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Frontwoman Kaila Thompson (KT) recalls, “Trump was up for re-election, COVID had just started, they had just killed Rashard Brooks at the Wendy’s on the south side. And then they started bringing in tanks, which is just crazy to even say – there were tanks in downtown Atlanta. They were driving up kids after curfew, extended school buses full of swat teams, hanging out the windows with rubber-bullet-guns just pointing them out at us and laughing. From there they started gassing their own people, who really just wanted justice, and who were tired and fed up.

“‘Freedoom’ is those nights of sneaking around the city trying to make the perfect turn so that you don’t get trapped or grabbed up by whoever is around the corner. It’s about late night meetings in undisclosed places, of what to do next, and an overall feeling – it’s being free but also dealing with hell.”

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‘Freaky’s accompanying video comes as an ode to Paul Reubens and Peew-ee’s Big Adventure which Upchuck and director Ian Cone filmed and created a month back. Check it out below.

Upchuck absconded to SoCal to record Bite the Hand That Feeds, enlisting the production talents of Ty Segall and the airy reprieve of his secluded Topanga Canyon home studio. Upchuck credits Segall, who recorded the entire record live to tape over the span of five days, with helping to elevate the arrangements of their second record to bold new heights. The album’s razor tight focus was forged in the fire of Upchuck’s live shows, speaking directly to the power of their in-person presence—these are songs meant to be heard pressed up against a barricade, blasted through dimed guitar amps placed so close to your ears that you can practically reach out and touch them. Live footage of Upchuck’s set is an undeniable spectacle within itself: before a single note is hit, oceans of teenage degenerates, punks, hoodie laden indie kids, and sneaker clad skaters. Upchuck places heavy emphasis upon the special quality of these shared moments with the crowd, often putting on their own shows in repurposed locations.

Lyrically, Bite the Hand That Feeds is passionately impressionistic, following the reflections of a charmingly unreliable narrator as she clocks the shortcomings of the world around her. In the words of KT, “I’m trying to point things out as I see them, but without critiquing anyone—I see the ways certain people act and feel like I’ve got to say something about it, but I’m not trying to pretend like I don’t act the same way sometimes. It’s all you do you, live and let live.”

Bite the Hand That Feeds:

1. Freaky
2. Hush Toy
3. Shaken
4. Reaper
5. Crashing
6. Freedoom
7. Toothless
8. Hierba Mala
9. NYAG
10. Scrugg
11. Long Gone
12. Crossfire
13. It Comes

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