South London punk newcomers PLAY DEAD have released their debut EP ‘Skint’ via Blitzcat Records. Following the release of well-received lead single Shaun earlier this year, the band have now shared their latest single Hide which is out now on all good DSPs. Take a listen to Hide via SoundCloud below.
The track has already picked up radio support from Radio X and Triple J, landing on Spotify’s Punk List and New Punk Tracks playlists on release day.
Commenting on the track, guitarist Joe Blair says: “Hide was written on a very hungover morning in late 2019. I was being asked by a few mates to come out and meet and I couldn’t be bothered. It’s about those days where you want to just stay in bed and watch shit TV.”
Born out of pre-pandemic bedroom boredom, PLAY DEAD are three teenagers from Herne Hill in London with sharp tongues and an appetite for noise influenced by The Chats, Slaves, IDLES, The Streets, Shame, and Sleaford Mods.
Rattling along with the time-tested nihilistic ambivalence of youth, PLAY DEAD’s music is the very definition of punk rock in 2021—a breakneck, brash, unapologetic and honest ride through the underbelly of modern life in the UK, from the perspective of a generation whose future has been carelessly tossed aside.
Still at the unbearably tender age of 16, the boys first announced themselves with tongue-in-cheek and widely praised 2020 debut single Whitstable.
Championed by Steve Lamacq (BBC 6Music), Huw Stephens (BBC Radio 1) and Abbie McCarthy (BBC Introducing in Kent), most recently the trio returned with the ferocious ‘Six Hours Later’—a track about overdosing on ADHD pills and accepting the sweet release of death, only to awake the next morning fit and well to find a goodbye video you’d recorded for your friends on your phone, and subsequently having to face the music in school.
Their promise is evidenced not only by their critics, but also by their mentors—Alex Johnson of UK punk band Wonk Unit has closely shepherded the young band, and their producer, Pat Collier, formerly bassist of UK punk stalwarts The Vibrators, engineered the EP together with Tom Berry and Lucy Wroe at Wardour Studios.
Descendents of a long-held tradition of London street-punk that found fame with Jimmy Pursey’s “Hersham Boys” Sham 69 in the 70s, and more recently pub-rockers Chubby and the Gang, Play Dead are as straight speaking as they come and they pull zero punches with their youthful takes on life in the capital.
The ‘Skint’ EP is out now via Blitzcat Records
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