Swami Records and Chicago punks Meat Wave — Ryan Wizniak (drums), Joe Gac (bass) and Chris Sutter (vocals, guitar) — are excited to announce the Friday, October 14 release of Malign Hex, the band’s fourth full-length album. The 10-track album, which features the brand new single “What Would You Like Me To Do” as well as previously released jams “Ridiculous Car” and “Honest Living,” was recorded by Gac in 2019 and serves as the band’s most cohesive, dynamic and ambitious work to date. “Our sound in the beginning was consistently very driving,” says Gac. “Now, that characteristic is merely a tool we can reach for. I don’t think it completely defines what we’re doing.”

Meat Wave spent the last half of 2019 chipping away at the forthcoming Malign Hex, choosing to work on it slowly in spurts, as opposed to their last album, The Incessant, which was recorded and mixed in four days. “We recorded [Malign Hex] the same way we always have — live in a room together,” says drummer Ryan Wizniak. “But we allowed ourselves to embellish more and take more chances with extra instrumentation.” 

And while the band did indeed incorporate more synths, organs and walls of guitar, it provides only nuance and atmosphere, not distraction from what Meat Wave does best. “We moved further away from the principle that we need to recreate every element on the album live,” says Gac. “There was no shame in adding extra overdubs and different sounds.” 

The album’s lyrics center around themes of lineage — where the band members come from and where they’re going. Malign Hex explores a litany of subjects and circumstances: addiction, greed, unreliable memory and obedience, all through a surrealist, collage-like lens. “Everyone wears a backpack full of hexes,” Chris Sutter explains. “It’s heavy and familial. And it’s yours.”