Since their inception in 2014, Billingham duo Mouses have been creating primal hooks and DIY garage rock songs as an antidote to a sanitised mainstream pop culture. Influenced by the likes of Weezer and Ty Seagall, they make fuzzy, noisy numbers that rarely stretch beyond three minutes long but still manage to get lodged so firmly in your head you’d need brain surgery to remove them. The pair – Stephen Bardgett and Nathan Duff – are currently gearing up to release their debut album, inventively titled The Mouses Album, and it’s set to be filled with killer rock tunes.
Mouses, though, have always been a bit more than your standard garage rock band. Yes, their gigs are break-neck displays of raw power and force, but scratch the surface of their gut-punch music and you find a contemplative and intelligent duo speaking of some hefty issues. That’s no different for latest single ‘Green.’ As singer and guitarist Bardgett explains, the track is about “the morality of a certain drug and the stigma that surrounds it. I’ve always been a purveyor of the idea that legality and morality don’t always go hand in hand.” But the song is also about “the bigger picture – the warped version of morality that runs through society – and is written from first-hand experience of how a relationship can break down because of this. People should think for themselves rather than what they’re told to think.” Make no mistake: these Mouses aren’t at all shy.
Mouses release The Mouses Album on 23rd September via Sister 9 Recordings.
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