Bangzz—the local scuzzy garage punk duo and creators of the very fun single “Hell Is Other People,” which the INDY premiered earlier this year—has had a busy week.
Today, they released the full-length album You Took My Body Long Ago and Now I am Taking it Back via the Potluck Foundation label (and which, at 12 songs, is no joke, length-wise) as well as a video single for “I’m Fine, Thank You and You.” Also, they’re performing at tomorrow’s Psychic Hotline Block Party at Cat’s Cradle.
More on the album in next week’s INDY—though you can go ahead and stream it now and listen to bangers like “Your Boyfriend is Really Bringing You Down” and “Your Asian Fetish is Racist”—but for now, enjoy the energetic grunge of the video, which is filmed by Grayson Simon (also the videographer for “Hell Is Other People” and “Love”) and features lead singer Erika Libero drinking cereal out of a mixing bowl as Fruit Loops ricochet off of Jess Caesar’s drums.
It’s a lively video, but as with all of Bangzz’s punk, the underbelly is relevant, real, and scorching. The album is about reclaiming bodies and narratives; “I’m Fine, Thank You and You” is about “being paralyzed by depression and anxiety, while working to identify, isolate and purge what is hurting me,” Libero says.
The Fruit Loops are no accident, either: they represent the kind of meal, Libero told the INDY, that’s marketed as healthy and all-American, even while being heavily processed and empty, just as “we were raised in a racist, sexist society [and] a lot of what we learned isn’t healthy.” Watch the video below.
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