Death From Above 1979’s Comeback Begins With “Trainwreck 1979″

Death From Above 1979 stormed onto the scene in 2004, armed with nothing but a bass, Moog, drums, and Sebastian Grainger's strained yelps on their debut, You're a Woman, I'm a Machine. The result was a thrashing groove-punk firestorm, but it disintegrated just as quickly as it started when Grainger and Jesse Keeler broke up two short years later. When the duo reunited for some live shows in 2011, it literally started a riot — that's the type of primal reaction DFA79's music elicits, so the gravitational pull of a follow-up album was particularly strong. And after a decade of waiting, Death From Above 1979 recently announced sophomore album, The Physical World, due out September 9.

Today we have the first single, "Trainwreck 1979." Keeler's fuzzed-out low end leads the way, as expected, but there's a curveball at the chorus as Grainger reaches for some high notes over a piano and poppy ooh backing vocals. For anyone who was once scared away by Grainger's screeching and the band's pummeling tempos, this is a decent reintroduction, as it's one of their most approachable cuts.

Also, we're wondering if the title is a reference to Grainger's cynical quote to NME about the pressure to record a proper follow-up: "We’re putting out a Death From Above record and if the press is like, ‘It’s not what we expected,’ or however they react to it, it’s like, ‘Well, you’ve been fucking asking for it.’” Well, you asked for it. Here it is: