Fifteen years is a long time to wait, and ‘Stay Home’ makes every one of them count. The new full-length from Halifax math-pop innovators Wot Gorilla?, out now via Drongo Records, is a self-produced record built over nearly three years of DIY tracking at Grant’s house and the band’s rehearsal space, anchored by two intense days of drum tracking at Hope Mill Studio in Manchester, and mastered by Joe Gibb (digital) and Pete Maher (vinyl). Louder, leaner and more precise than anything in their catalog, it incorporates post-hardcore intensity and pop sensibility with new warmth and bite. “Wot Gorilla? have always thrived on tension, between precision and chaos, melody and math,” says vocalist and guitarist Mat Haigh. “Stay Home is the sound of us reconnecting with why we started this band in the first place.”
To mark the release, the band have shared two performance pieces that showcase exactly what makes them so compelling. A video of album cut “15q11.2” performed in the round at Elland Studios puts their precision and emotional range on full display, while drummer Jason Howard delivers the first in a series of detailed, notated playthroughs of recent single “Clowns,” a focused breakdown of technique and shifting time signatures that is as illuminating as it is technically staggering. Further installments covering each band member on their respective instruments are on the way.
The title nods to the isolation of the pandemic, not just the literal instruction of lockdown but the inward focus required to rebuild momentum when the scene went silent. Some of the material dates back to before 2020, meaning the recording process became a way of rediscovering songs that started life in an entirely different world. Formed in Sowerby Bridge in 2009, Wot Gorilla? are veterans of Reading and Leeds, ArcTanGent, 2000trees and Live at Leeds, and have shared stages with Vennart, The Get Up Kids, Delta Sleep, Cursive and Rolo Tomassi.
Tour Dates:
February 26 | Bradford | 1 in 12 Club
February 27 | Birmingham | The Rainbow
February 28 | Norwich | Voodoo Daddys
March 5 | Sowerby Bridge | The Blind Pig
March 6 | Bristol | Cafe Kino
March 7 | Luton | The Castle