Studio 52 is a community artist space located in the heart of Allston, and is proud to support the Boston music scene and local artist community.
Earlier this year the three gents of CONTACT jumped in the van and travelled with Vanyaland down to Austin for South-By-Southwest. Along the way, we collectively saw the grim ghostland of landlocked America — once bustling towns littered with empty storefronts, abandoned gas stations, and Main Streets paved towards the lost promise of prosperity as somewhere quickly turns to nowhere.
The only things that hadn’t changed over the years were the graveyards we whistled past on our way down to a music festival.
This week, CONTACT return with a new single called “Gravekeeper,” and though the topic is more about a faded romance than an American town that lost its way, its sentiment of what can and cannot be moved on from bares a striking similarity. “Gravekeeper,” the follow-up to the trio’s smash 2016 electronic-pop hit “Never Stop” and first single under the management of Redefined, finds CONTACT veering more towards post-punk and guitar-rock supremacy, all while keeping their studious knack for illuminating synthetics.
“It became this story about really putting yourself out there for someone, but having it totally backfire,” says guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Matt Rhoades. “She kept telling me over the course of our dating that she thought I was a liar. I played into that with ‘Gravekeeper’ by saying how much she meant to me throughout the song, then ending with [the lyric] ‘The only truth is that I’m lying in my blood.'”
Dance with the skeletons of your own past below, and catch CONTACT perform live September 20 at the Middle East in Cambridge with Beverly-born 2013 American Idol contestant Zealyn.
Featured CONTACT image by Eddy Leiva.