BERRIES – A Deadly Return

With its scrawled-out staccato guitar licks, spidery basslines, and venomous lyrical stings, first cut “Watching Wax” signals a deadly return from London trio.

Dripping with a febrile intensity and packed with scattergun hooks to match, “Watching Wax” finds BERRIES reflecting on the restlessness of anxiety and the constant cloud it can cast over our day-to-day. As the band state:

“Watching Wax is about escaping your worries for the day and attempting to give your mind a rest. The lyrics touch on fears for our future selves, looming anxieties that you can’t suppress and the desire to have a perfect day without your daily stormy thoughts.”

The first indicator of how the follow-up to their acclaimed debut, ‘How We Function’ is shaping up, the single finds BERRIES honing their art for the unpredictable and growing in confidence. And as its eponymous title, ‘BERRIES’, may already make clear, this is a band determined to make a statement with their second full-length outing.

While the band have never shied away from brutally honest admissions or difficult subject matters like struggles with mental health, ‘BERRIES’ finds them weaponising them into a set of fearlessly assertive tracks that seize strength from darkness. As BERRIES explain:

“This album is about battling intrusive thoughts and finding contentment in your day, however big or small those moments are. It’s a journey to finding your own space and being comfortable in it. We haven’t held back with this album – it’s raw, honest, and a true reflection of BERRIES.”

Teaming up with production legend Adrian Bushby (Foo Fighters, Muse, Everything Everything), who took on mixing duties for the record, listeners will almost certainly feel that turbo-boost coursing through the veins of BERRIES 2.0.

While veering between Riot Grrrl-esque discordance and thunderous grunge-rock anthems ripe for the big rooms, ‘BERRIES’ also finds a band spreading their wings with sonic explorations into shapeshifting math-rock (as on opener “Barricades”), epic post-rock nods (on closer “Crumpled Clothes”), through shades of Power-Pop (as on the infectious “Narrow Tracks”), and even tender, unadorned acoustica (as on “Balance”). Reflecting of making ‘BERRIES’, the band add:

“We really pushed ourselves creatively and out of our comfort zone, especially with the acoustic track and working with mixing engineer Adrian Bushby. We’re super proud of what we’ve written and created.”