Dutch band Cloudsurfers will release their new studio album Subhuman Essence on 15 September. The album was recorded live in the control room with producer Abel de Grefte and the mix was done by Michael Badger (Amyl & The Sniffers, SONS, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizzard).
Cloudsurfers’ second album Subhuman Essence is a daredevil attempt to match the group’s boisterous stage hijinks on record. There’s a feverish, festering energy permeating through these ten tracks, channeled through five individuals like a jolt of lightning. Their mutant strand of garage punk, post-grunge and psychedelic rock of this rumoured five-piece is uplifting and compelling. One moment their songs swarm at the heart of the breakneck G-forces, the next they’re ghostriding the expressway to hook-laden alt-pop nirvana. Guitar signals whizz through the drum mics, all the noise brewing like dangerous ecosystems that miraculously sustain each other.
The band’s debut album Don’t Know What Hit Me (2021) largely accommodated singer/guitarist Thom Liesting’s expressive songwriting; this time around, the group had a larger puzzle to solve. For one, there was the challenge of having the group’s two heavy-hitting hombres – Nanne Hatzman and Ramses Hooymeijer – playing off each other’s strengths. It perfectly encapsulates Cloudsurfers’ rapidly developing chemistry on Subhuman Essence, especially between Sloot’s cerebral composing chops and Liesting’s reality-bending chronicles of misadventure. Bassist Jess van der Zee, meanwhile, is the ultimate tether that keeps all the erratic rhythms and melodies from spiraling into a hodgepodge of noise, discharging guttural heavy-melodic slabs with a perpetually awestruck smile on her face.
Cloudsurfers will tour throughout Europe in the upcoming months, followed by an album release tour in The Netherlands:
06 okt – Rotown, Rotterdam
13 okt – Ekko, Utrecht
14 okt – Hedon, Zwolle
23 okt – Doornroosje, Nijmegen
05 jan – Paradiso, Amsterdam
All tourdates and more information: www.cloudsurfers.net