Beans – “Haunted” [Video]

Melbourne-based band Beans, fronted by The Murlocs drummer Matt Blach, have just announced the forthcoming release of a new album, Boots N Cats, which will be out for all to hear on Friday March 1st via Fuzz Club. This exciting new album bounces between organ-driven garage-rock wig-outs, breezy psych-pop and groovy funk instrumentals. Today, the band has released a single from the upcoming record; a kaleidoscopic track titled ‘Haunted’.

“’Haunted’ is about life’s ups and downs. It’s mostly based around a wide metaphor for everyone that feels like they aren’t or can’t accomplish enough.” Beans

Set to serve up eleven tracks of rhythmic garage-psych goodness, Boots N Cats is the third full-length album from Melbourne outfit Beans, and the first of two albums set for release in 2024. The long-awaited follow-up to 2018’s Babble and 2020’s All Together Now, Boots N Cats is a record which finds Beans frontman Matt Blach placing percussion at centre-stage.

“I’ve always wanted to make a drum-based album, dedicated around the beat first and then everything else follows” Blach says, explaining his desire to explore “different production approaches, like hip-hop and crunched drums, and show an admiration and appreciation for the likes of The Meters, Wu-Tang and James Brown” as much as the acid-soaked 60s/70s rock you’d expect.

What emerges from the beat-first approach on Boots N Cats charts mutant garage-rock boogies and festival tent psychedelia, by way of blissed-out funk instrumentals. The line is constantly skirted between a loose, carefree vibe and interesting, meticulous musicianship – never falling into the trap of taking itself too seriously. It’s a sunny kaleidoscope of chugging guitars, driving bass-lines, soaring organs and warm, echo-soaked vocals – driven always by the tightly-wound rhythms and grooves that Blach has been in pursuit of since he was a kid: “The title of the album comes from me learning drums from my dad. He had a background of German heritage and during lessons would jokingly say ‘nein, boot’n’cats’n’ like a simple 1,2,3,4.”

The songs themselves, Blach says, are “mostly based on a state of mind or place of consciousness, intended to be open to the audience’s own interpretation as well as for my own self-release.” Hence, “life’s ups and downs” are placed under the microscope on tracks like the record’s lead single ‘Haunted’, which dives head-first into the near-universal sense of being “haunted by the fear of failure.” The aforementioned lead single, which is out now, arrives alongside a whimsical and captivating music video (created by Willem Kingma), filled with spooky psychedelic drawings which float and dance around the screen in a nostalgic VHS fuzz.