The male gaze is bad, but Male Gaze are good. The former is a dehumanizing default way of being that reduces everything in its path to an object to be consumed. The latter make the kind of music that feels as though it’s been formed out of some kind of totalized rubble. Is it potentially problematic for a trio of dudes to call themselves “Male Gaze”? Yes, undoubtedly, but you get the sense that the San Francisco trio are the kinds of people who subject themselves to relentless criticism. It may help to remember that the fictional monarch who kinda/sorta lends his name to the title of the group’s 2016 LP, King Leer, isn’t the kind of patriarch you’d wanna follow through the heath.
Now, almost exactly a year since that album’s release, Male Gaze are returning with the equally punny Miss Taken, and today we’re premiering the video for “Tell Me How It Is,” a dark and stormy stomp of a song that burns like Nick Cave crossing the Mojave with a stack of Suicide singles. While it’s enveloped in a heat shimmer of processed guitar, all that static masks a strong, sturdy piece of sophisticated pop. “Push me off a cliff / Or come save me,” Matt Jones sings, and the song obliges, its locomotion driving forward despite the persistent anxiety that clouds the air around him. Check it out below.
Miss Taken is out June 30 via Castle Face.
