San Fermin Release Manic New Track, Announce New Album [stream]

San Fermin – Parasite SoundCloud

Shortly after their debut album dropped in the fall of 2013, San Fermin set out for a seemingly never ending season of touring, but the payoff was tremendous. The eight-piece troupe ravaged every audience who came out to see them with their gorgeous intensity and unrivaled stage chemistry. Anyone who has listened to their debut in earnest knows that the band’s centerpiece is cinema, as the scenes unfold between two main characters caught up in a lovers’ feud. Their high energy live show gave the story flesh and bone and absorbed the audience into the theatrics.

Yesterday San Fermin released a new track from their upcoming sophomore record out next spring. Still featuring back-and-forths between characters, where the debut romance material was youthful and sentimental, “Parasite” emanates from somewhere much, much darker. “These little hands are parasites/Get in there and hang on tight/Take what they can take and leave you bleeding,” sings Charlene Kaye, sweetly, diabolically. Then the baritone reply from Allen Tate a few lines later, “Your little hands are paradise/Give them here and hang on tight/This body’s been trying to find a reason.” It’s still yearning, but a sinister sort that quickly morphs into frenzied horns embedded with beautiful but manic violin runs.

San Fermin’s mastermind composer and songwriter, Ellis Ludwig-Leone, told NPR he “was looking for a sound that was a little darker and maybe a little more manic.” Well, he has achieved that in “Parasite”, and we can hardly wait ’til April 21 rolls around and brings us Jackrabbit. Listen to the beautifully deranged “Parasite” from San Fermin above.