Ready yourself: Animal Flag’s new LP commences with a bold confessional. “Jealous Lover,” the Boston band’s new single and opening track of their debut album (out today via Broken World Media), sways in an apologetic stew of bitterness and menace.
“I disregard my father/Mom says I’m always gone,” singer Matt Politoski broadcasts over dirge-y guitar riffs and rigid drumming thunder. The track’s placement as first on the album is a bold move, but for Politoski, it fit perfectly. ”It’s one of the darker points on the album so it only goes up from there,” Politoski says of the track. “To me, it has a meditative quality that puts me in the right headspace to either perform a handful of these songs live or listen to this record.”
Politoski penned the tune in October 2014 before a show, and improvised a full band arrangement the same night; he attributes the synergy of the feat to the band being on the road for 40-plus days together. The lyrics veer between exploring themes of distrust and guilt, according to Politoski, although he largely wants listeners to interpret the song for themselves.
“Every time I sing this song, my interpretation of it changes a little,” he says. “I guess the first verse is about jealousy and how it’s a super primitive human emotion. A lot of us would love to believe we are above jealousy because it’s so ugly, but I think it’s something everyone has to struggle with in one context or another. The second verse is me exploring my place in my family structure, if you chose to take it literally. To me, it’s playing off the archetypal images of the Father and the Mother more than literally taking about my mother and father. Ultimately, the second verse is about guilt. The last verse kind of ties it all up in my mind with the image of the Lord being a lover and at the same time maybe a motherly figure.”
There isn’t a speck of levity to be found in the song’s tense two minutes, and with no chorus, the track lacks that feeling of warm familiarity that many songs convey. All the better, Politoski says, for the pensively gloomy and pointed aim of the tune.
“From the outset this song has always felt super ominous,” Politoski adds. “We fleshed it out as a band and definitely retained that feeling. On the record we doubled my main vocal melody with me singing a single low note for the entire song and I think that is what gives the recording a dreary feeling.”
Fortunately, the musical maelstrom passes quickly, and light peeks into the album by second track “Sensation”.
Animal Flag have come a long way since their awkward conception, when chief songwriter Politoski made his first record as a drone album on his parents’ desktop computer. The band’s new album marks Animal’s Flag third release and combines the work of their last two EPs from 2014 and 2015 into what Politoski considers the band’s first album with the current lineup. “Animal Flag has been my solo project since 2007, and this record (even though it’s technically a re-release) is definitive because it’s the first true full band effort,” he says.
Listen to “Jealous Lover” below via Soundcloud, and allow it to set the tone for the rest of the album. Animal Flag are nominated for Best New Artist in the 2016 Boston Music Awards, and play the Middle East in Cambridge on November 2.
