I’m gonna go ahead and out myself as being old enough to have heard Wolf Parade for the first time way back before our current era of social media celebrity and confess that all I heard in their music was one of the strangest vocalists I’d ever encountered, only later realizing that the singing/songwriting duties were evenly split between two of the strangest vocalists I’d ever encountered. Since then it’s been a little easier for me to process things when a band’s throwing the listener for a loop with a dual vocalist situation, although Philadelphia’s Grocer take that idea to the next level with a three-frontpeople lineup making its debut in May of 2020—and returning in May of this year for the follow-up album titled Numbers Game.
The first taste of the new LP arrives today with drummer Cody Nelson taking on lead vox, escorting the band’s wonky power-pop sound in a considerably darker direction, both instrumentally and lyrically. “‘Pick a Way’ is an attempt to try and understand the entitlement of men in general and specifically during the insurrection at the Capitol,” Nelson explains. “It was born out of trying to wrap my brain around the increasingly detached lines of reason that go hand-in-hand with toxic masculinity.”
Matching this tone is the track’s music video, which sees the band playing in a pitch-black room and illuminated only by the limited illumination of a single flashlight as the track descends into chaotic guitar shredding. Watch the video below, and check out the album—out May 6 on the band’s new label home of Grind Select—here.
