Philly’s Soul Glo are back with “Ppl Worried,” a frantic punk confessional off the band’s upcoming album, NA I’M GON GRAB ALLAT, out 15th Jan. Frontman Pierce Jordan wrestles with losing oneself in grief, the numbing solitude of addiction and cycles of self-sabotage, deepening the album’s compelling journey through the complexities of surviving modern existence.
Community is front-of-mind on Soul Glo’s NA I’M GON GRAB ALLAT’s lyrics, which Jordan, who Revolver crowned “the most uncompromising, poetic and genuine hardcore lyricist right now,” describes as being “largely about failures, mine and others, in my relationships with different men in my life.” Always a vulnerable, funny, and soul-baring lyricist, Pierce is at the top of his game on this album, exploring the idea that men live “constantly at the expense of everyone.”
On the ripping, hooky punk deep dive, “Resentment I: Back In Therapy,” Soul Glo explores difficult interpersonal relationships with people who “force the world to prove its love.” Avant-garde punk/metal hero Eugene Robinson, vocalist for the bands Whipping Boy, Oxbow, and Buñuel, wails alongside Pierce on the Side A highlight.
NA I’M GON GRAB ALLAT was recorded at Foto Club in Philadelphia, PA, retaining the Soul Glo’s unique experimental edge, playing fast and frantic, Jordan’s mile-a-minute vocals, and the sticky-strong sonic glue of TJ Stevenson’s inimitable drumming.
Across the fourteen songs, Soul Glo speaks on the Black experience within the punk and hardcore scene and everyday life, resentment, anxieties around relationships, drug abuse, self-discovery, and breaking down the so-called male loneliness epidemic. He dedicates the album to “everyone who has known the joy and pain of loving a man. All different types of love: platonic, romantic, familial, self.”
NA I’M GON GRAB ALLAT is simultaneously more intense and more approachable than Diaspora Problems, but it’s not all guitar-driven, weaving in frenetic drum patterns and heavy hip-hop beats. The searing open letter, “B.A.N.D.S.,” features backing vocals from Commitment’s Tati Salazar and Mannequin Pussy’s Bear, while New York experimental rap king MIKE and genre-defying Chattanooga rapper BbyMutha both have verses on the album closer, “Cognac.”
Indie rock luminary Tunde Adebimpe of TV On The Radio is featured on the moving “PPL Worried,” exploring the raw, unfiltered chokehold and internal conflicts of addiction. Making NA I’M GON GRAB ALLAT not just a collection of songs, but a profound and compelling journey through the complexities of surviving modern existence.
Since forming in Philadelphia in 2014, Soul Glo was dubbed the “future of hardcore” by Pitchfork and released the breakout 2022 album Diaspora Problems, a culmination of nearly a decade of touring, creative development, playing basements, small clubs, and DIY spaces.
The pivotal release has earned over 14 million streams and critics’ praise, with Brooklyn Vegan calling it “…one of the best punk albums released in recent memory” and Pitchfork lauding its mix of “…radical, actionable rhetoric, absurdist humor, and breathtaking vulnerability.” The band has since been touring extensively, including with generational emo act My Chemical Romance, Coachella’s Sonora Stage in 2023, and the first hardcore set at the infamous Tiny Desk.
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