Platinum certified outfit Dirty Heads have shared two fresh cuts, ‘Better‘ and ‘Sound Boy Killa‘, from forthcoming ninth album 7 Seas, due 12 June via Better Noise Music. A music video for ‘Better‘ has also landed.
The Southern California five piece have been quietly building toward this record for a while, and the two new tracks suggest 7 Seas will continue the band’s genre blurring evolution. On ‘Better‘, percussionist Jon Olazabal points to the song’s hopeful tone, calling it one of his personal favourites and noting how much the band wanted to remind listeners that “all things pass” in turbulent times.
Vocalist and guitarist Duddy B describes ‘Better‘ as a song that just poured out, the rare one that didn’t feel like pulling teeth.
‘Sound Boy Killa‘, meanwhile, takes a different route. Singer Jared Watson explains he’d been soaking up UK garage and wanted to fuse a dirty UKG bassline with Dirty Heads style hip-hop drums and reggae undertones. The result blends Jamaican DJ clash culture with grimy bass sonics, designed, by his own admission, to slap hard live and not take itself too seriously.
The label mates of Sabaton, The HU, Eva Under Fire and The Funeral Portrait are gearing up for a busy summer too. Dirty Heads will hit the road on a co-headline run with 311, with festival dates and headline shows peppered through the schedule from June through August, including stops at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, CO and a run of US amphitheatre dates.
The band also recently teamed up with ocean conservation organisation 4ocean, with frontman Jared Watson joining a clean up at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Key Largo. The plastic gathered has been recycled into Dirty Heads x 4ocean bracelets, available individually or with a limited premium vinyl edition of 7 Seas.
We’ve got time for a band that uses album campaigns to actually pull plastic out of the sea. Whether or not the genre blend lands for you, the intent behind it is hard to fault.
