Bursting with anarchic energy and the unmovable LA attitude that fuels them, HLLLYH blasts back into the fold with their explosive new single "Flex It, Tagger," their final taste from their forthcoming album. HLLLYH, reborn from the ashes of an earlier version of themselves, also called Mae Shi, defines this song as much as the song describes the band.
Written in 2009 but shelved when the Mae Shi broke up, "Flex It, Tagger" pulses with the raw, chaotic joy of a scene that defined a generation. HLLLYH channels the sweaty, spark-fueled mayhem of their late-2000s performances in basement black boxes across Los Angeles like The Smell and Pehrspace and the early abandon of FYF Fest. The result is raucous and whip-smart, a punk-electro blast of energy that sounds like a mosh pit on a circuit board, simultaneously tightly controlled, twitchy, and very alive.
But under the musical euphoria, there is a darker reality. "Flex It, Tagger" is a politically charged anthem, too. Tongue in cheek in their self-regard, the band lays down the spirit of rebellion. "Every rebellion looks foolhardy until it's successful; this one looks very foolhardy." It's a wink from a band that's observed how idealism and chaos like to ball in a dark room full of distortion pedals and sweat.
You can feel untied loose ends under the surface of this release, the loud echo of what could have been, currently sounding as a roar of what still can be. "Flex It, Tagger" won't let the past die quietly. It electrifies it back to life, seizes a moment in music history by the scruff of the neck, and yanks it, screaming and glittering, into the present.
Accompanying the single, HLLLYH also releases a cover of Elvis Costello's "The Other Side of Summer," a tribute to another type of revolution, the kind for snotty, pop-savvy rebellion. Between them, both tracks represent a defiant new chapter for HLLLYH, one foot in the past and one fist raised at whatever comes next. This is not just a single. It's a manifesto with a beat.
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