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For immediate release:
September 25, 2024
POST-PUNK BAND
AGENDER
ANNOUNCE ECCENTRIC THIRD STUDIO ALBUM
BERSERK
DUE OUT FEBRUARY 2025
& WANT TO LOOK GOOD FOR THE APOCALYPSE WITH
CHEEKY DISCO-PUNK TRACK + SELF-DIRECTED VIDEO
"THINGS THINGS THINGS"
OUT NOW
LISTEN HERE | WATCH HERE
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"A scorching slow-burner, their latest track “Damaged Girls” opens with a gauntlet of simmering riffs and punchy percussion." | |
"Driving bass lines, ominously avant-garde synth melodies and lots and lots of punk attitude from Romy." | |
"Agender is a uniquely ferocious Los Angeles, California-based four-piece indie post-punk/synth band. They make that earth-shattering music that easily breaks the fragile windows down — on small-minded people who just don’t get it — and is packed full of biting symbolism that causes your blood-filled heart to suddenly beat much faster than before." | |
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LA-based post-punk band Agender just want to look good for the apocalypse with their latest cheeky, punk-disco track "Things Things Things" out today. It's a lighthearted commentary on consumerism and the band invites listeners to join them on a shopping trip with its accompanying self-directed official music video. Plus, the band promises to share their punchy, synth-punk third album, Berserk, which captures the band's distinctive manic, unhinged energy that matches living in today's world, early next year.
Over cutting guitars, melodic synths and disco drums, "Things Things Things" is a playful take on the endless quest to buy more to fill a bottomless void that never quite feels fulfilled. With lines like "Things, things, things, a material girl, not a moralist/I know everything is bad, I just wanna look good for the apocalypse," lead singer/guitarist Romy Hoffman says, "‘Things’ is the dancey disco punk anthem against consumerism we all need right now, in this age of late stage capitalism." The bassline came first, followed by the disco drum beat and guitars followed. The songs, like most Agender songs, flowed naturally out of Hoffman, who adds, "I didn't set out to write a song about late stage capitalism, it just wrote itself. I kept hearing 'Things Things Things' pop out of the rhythm section pocket." The track was written by Hoffman, produced by her and David Scott Stone (LCD Soundsystem), mixed by Spencer Hartling (Self Improvement) and mastered by Bob Weston (Shellac).
The video was self-directed and mirrors the playful energy of the track, aptly set in a Los Angeles mall. On the video, Hoffman says, "You can have inexpensive fun at the mall, and malls are such a big part of the L.A landscape. I thought it'd be fun to cruise around together, go shopping, try on clothes, have a day out as a band. I knew I wanted us to end up at a karaoke lounge."
Watch "Things Things Things" (Official Music Video)
The high energy forthcoming third studio album, Berserk, captures attention like never before, with tracks that are short to satisfy the collective shrinking attention span. Hoffman explains, "Berserk suits the times we live in, as well as the energy of the record. it's a bit manic, unhinged, wild!" Inspired by other artists making spirited, action-packed music, Hoffman continues, "Some of the songs are short, like, a minute and a half, because I wanted to explore writing quick, punchy, short attention span songs, because I noticed that a lot of songs on albums that I like by young, mainly hip hop artists, are super short and do a lot in such little time." Thematically, the music touches on queer love and heartbreak, aging, how some voids can only be filled spiritually.
Sonically, the group continues to carve their own path with their own distinguishable sound as the album traverses through manic synth punk, classic punk with big pop hooks, disco punk, hard, harsh post-punk, and combines regular punk band instrumentation with modern electronics.
Earlier this year, the band shared "Jeans" where the group begs for the tortuous details of their new lover's romantic history, along with the white-and-denim-filled video to match that pays homage to 90s-era jeans advertisements and friendly sleepovers.
Agender formed in 2011 as a solo punk project for lead singer and primary writer Romy Hoffman. Just two years later, it morphed into a trio, and by 2014, the band became known for their thrashing punk shows. The group's first album Fixations arrived that same year, and eight years later, the introspective, tongue-in-cheek second LP, No Nostalgia was released. Buzzbands LA called 2022's celebratory disco-punk anthem "Top Bottom Top," "deliciously throbbing." The band expanded on the track with an EP of remixes with the help of friends and queer icons–Le Tigre's JD Samson as well as Harvey Sutherland. Made up of Hoffman, Cristy Michel (bass), Christy Greenwood (drums) and Sara Rivas (synth), the quartet carves out a space that is uniquely their own–filled with fierce pride, a delicate balance of satire and earnest observations of life, and a piercing sound that energetically empowers and uplifts voices that are often stifled. With their third project on the horizon, the group aims to elevate their sound and step into an all-new phase of Agender–where they touch on real-world issues using their signature sound with a touch of danceable disco.
Agender play with consumerism as they shop for the end of the world with "Things Things Things" out now. Berserk, the wild, fiery third album by the quartet is due out early next year. Connect with Agender on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube for more from the punk rockers.
Watch "Jeans" (Official Music Video) | Listen
Watch "Damaged Girls" (Official Music Video) | Listen
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Agender Bio
It’s hard to put Agender into any box: With Australian songwriter and musician Romy Hoffman at the helm, the quartet makes schizo, synthy, paranoid, post-punk with a dash of dysmorphic desire. And fans? They revel in their sweeping existential terror that comes with a fetish for femininity.
Initially formed in 2011 as a solo punk excursion for Hoffman, Agender was born when she decided to get sober. “It started as impulsive, a way to cope with all these new, raw feelings. I played every instrument myself on the first Agender record.” But as quickly as it started as a solitary endeavor, it evolved into a trio just two years later. By 2014, the band had become known for its intense punk shows and had released its first album Fixations via Desire Records. Since then, the queer post-punk outfit has now become a full-fledged quartet with bassist Cristy Michel, drummer Christy Greenwood and synth player Sara Rivas rounding out the band. Still, Hoffman still remains its focal point as the primary writer in the group.
Agender, however, has taken its time with releasing a new record. It’s been seven years since the band released Fixations. In that 7-year time span, Hoffman moved from Melbourne to Los Angeles, built a life for herself in a new city, released a solo record of dark, driving electronic music ,starting running two of L.A’s biggest queer parties (‘Homoccult’ and ‘Lez Croix’), and situated herself as a respected DJ. The process of No Nostalgia, the band’s second album, has also been slow and steady: the songs were penned pre-pandemic and partially recorded then, but finished during COVID. No Nostalgia came from Hoffman reaching the crossroads of oscillating between bouts of extreme nostalgia and extreme amnesia. With the record, she wanted to strip it all away. “When we live in a world where everything is nostalgic, I’m trying to imagine a world with none of that, but it’s impossible. Even if I’m just commenting on society, it’s still referential to something, therefore relies on memory, therefore I’ve thought myself into a corner. It’s from this corner that I write,” she says. In spring 2022, fans of Agender will get to experience Hoffman’s reality.
While Agender’s last two records took themselves a bit more seriously, No Nostalgia is rooted in satire. “This record is poking fun at modernity and postmodernity,” says Hoffman. “It’s satirical. It’s a bird’s eye view of where we are and the absurdity of everything.” Inspired by everything from The French Situationist Movement to Wire and Buzzcocks, No Nostalgia is a canvas painted with singular post-punk.
Introducing No Nostalgia, Agender has shared two singles ahead of its release. Last Fall, they unveiled “Preach,” an eerie, synth-heavy single laced with guitar stabs that transforms God into Goddess energy. And in May, they shared “Astro Tarot,” an ode to divine intuition and the cosmic roadmap that intrigues the psyche. The title track ‘No Nostalgia’ was Agender’s third single, and most emblematic of the record: “For me, it’s imagining a world of no memory.”
With No Nostalgia, Hoffman finds herself meditating on existentialism. On the urgent, self-referential “Avoid A Void,” she nods to her own journey of maintaining sobriety over the last decade. “Exist in a slippery dip/Spits you out into a big abyss,” she drones. Similarly, the heart-racing “Trouble And Desire” shows Hoffman ruminating over the push-and-pull of love addiction. Over spazzy guitar riffs, “Woah Life Wow” digs deeper into searching for answers in introspection: “She’s done enough of pray, this incarnation’s saved/Waiting in a waiting room, nothing to do but wait.” Songs like “Pastiche” and “Mother Simulacra'' tackle the death of originality — the former, a tongue-in-cheek parody on postmodernism, and the latter, a realization that Hoffman’s relationships are a copy of her relationship with her mother. Agender, however, takes a moment from life’s big questions to celebrate queer love with the disco-punk anthem “Top Bottom Top.” Politics don’t escape Hoffman’s focus on the record. With “Rusher,” a track penned at the height of “Russiagate” when Trump was in office, Hoffman interprets the absurdity of politics as theater: “Space race, space race seemed so fun/Dr. Strangelove press buttons.” Over bursts of guitar fuzz, “Fact Fuck Fiction” contemplates the insanity of political doublespeak: “Welcome to the news today/Don’t know if it’s true or fake.” By the album’s closer “Extinction of Handwriting,” Hoffman is yearning for simpler times over spacey synths — an analog future instead of a digital one.
While Agender is Hoffman’s current focus, her experience in music spans more than two decades: She began her career as a teen playing guitar in Ben Lee’s pop-punk band Noise Addict and later became the first hip hop artist (and second Australian) to sign to Kill Rock Stars, as Macromantics. Later, Hoffman began making dark electro pop and house music under ROMY.
No matter what project she’s working on, Hoffman believes she’s a medium for a message: “I’m delivering something that needs to be said.”
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