The countdown is officially on for Gen and the Degenerates releasing their explosive second album Earthy Delights – rather than leaving us twiddling our thumbs for the next four months, the Liverpool art-punk trio are dropping tracks to keep us on the edge of our seats. Newest single ‘Hotter On The Internet’ is a tantalising taste of what’s to come from the experimental unit, galloping back in with a fresh line-up, robust and innovative ideas, and a score of expert collaborations behind the scenes.
“I feel like people are expecting to meet a certain kind of person, someone that they’re basing on the content of me that they see online, and then I feel like I’m actually quite boring, compared to their expectations. Or at least I’m boring in a practical sense.”
Coming to life after a Liverpool songwriting panel The Narrative, ‘Hotter On The Internet’ had involvement from Dan Haggis (The Wombats) until it was shaped into the punchy, satirical-led, self-aware track it is, the thumping instruments and cleverly paced breakdowns adding to the friction and exhaustion of having an online persona and the actual human behind it.
Vocalist Genevieve Glynn-Reeves explores this dissonance between online and real-life, calling out the borderline absurdity of people expecting the carefully curated person on screen when they meet the singer in real life, believing they should continue to portray their persona to appease them instead of accepting the genuine personality sat in front of them.
Kicking down the door with distorted guitar and sardonic noises of agreement, Glynn-Reeves moves onto describing who they really are, that “eye contact gives me a heart attack”, and generally how entirely human they really are, their voice inflecting on “but no-one would ever know that!”.
Punk riffs and shattering drums fuel the frustration and bemusement for a Riot Grrrl vibe, before the breakdown strips back to Glynn-Reeves and a rising synth scale as they paint a picture of a ‘cool girl’ who’s “read every book you’ve ever wanted to read / I’m fashionably late to every party” in sultry tones, building up to the big reveal “when the apps uninstalled, I don’t really exist”.
Sarcasm and weighty punk fuels ‘Hotter On The Internet’ and its core message that not everything you see online is the truth.
Find Gen and the Degenerates at genanthedegenerates | soundcloud | youtube | instagram | facebook | tiktok