Pretty Addicted – Phobia (Vicious Clown Records)
Industrial dance punk band Pretty Addicted – the vehicle of vocalist Vicious Precious – have released spine-crawling new single Phobia, along with an age-restricted video playing with common fear-inducers.
Artist: Pretty Addicted
Track: Phobia
Label: Vicious Clown Recordings
Released: 30 December 2020
Find it: Bandcamp | Spotify
With a mantra of ‘We come. We fuck shit up. We leave’ and describing their sound as like ‘Marilyn Manson made ’90s rave music’ Yorkshire-based industrial dance punks Pretty Addicted go full throttle on latest single Phobia.
A relentless rhythm and bright percussion tussles with snarling vocals throughout the track, easily imagined as coming at you between laser-cut curls of smoke hung in the space between dark corners. The ’90s horror influence is strong lyrically (and visually in the video) but equally matched and offset by the euphoric dance sound. And at over five and half minutes long, with a stop-start held-breath breakdown and persistent cycling scream-and-shout vocals it becomes as consuming and confining as the phobia of the title.
‘I don’t wanna be brave / I don’t want to overcome anything’
Taken from delayed album Soul for Sale – due out in April 2021 now – Phobia continues to hear Pretty Addicted larger than life and refusing to conform. The seething growl of punk brawls with disturbing clown-goth stare-downs, expansive hard trance synths, and tireless drumnbass pounding. While the combination works – somehow – it can at times feel a little crowded lyrically, but even the most cynical will be overcome by the cyclical structures – shit does indeed get fucked up (in a good way, of course) when Pretty Addicted are played loud.
Phobia by Pretty Addicted is out now digitally. There is a fear-fuelled video to go alongside it – age-restricted so please head over to YouTube and sign in to watch it.
Find Pretty Addicted: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp | Spotify
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Sarah Lay
A long-standing music journalist she's also co-founder of independent record label Reckless Yes, an author of novels, and when not messing around with words and music, a digital strategist.
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