EP: Stray Honey by The Loud Bangs

Progressive shoegaze band The Loud Bangs released a new EP titled “Stray Honey” on Valentine’s Day the 14th of February from Los Angeles California, United States.

The Loud Bands were founded by four members in Los Angeles in the summer of 2021, and have released multiple EPs in the last year, but “Stray Honey” is the sexiest of them all by far.

Being released on Valentine’s Day, and as the title would suggest “Stray Honey” revolves around themes of sex and sexual loneliness. It addresses these personal topics in a deeply emotional and heartfelt way, with the music that pushes frontiers in shoegaze.

The intro track “Electroprize” will immediately grab your attention as you grapple with the intense layers of emotions with which The Loud Bangs kick off “Stray Honey”. 

From the darker and aggressive initial tones of “Electroprize” The Loud Bangs slowly introduce their softer, more melancholic colours with the following tracks “Sex Complex” and “We All Want To Be All Right” that feature clean tones and slower tempo moody music.

The fourth track on the EP “This Is a Japanese Robot” will get you amped up after straight away like the storm after the calm. The explosive energy on “This Is a Japanese Robot” will get you to dance, tap your feet, band your head, shake your arms, or do whatever your body naturally does. The track has a liberating energy to it that fuses rock, ragtime, and club dance together.

Finally, we get to the epic masterpiece of “Stray Honey” and the track that made me realise The Loud Bangs‘ incredible potential as musicians and sound designers. Track five “Bell Gardens” is when the band’s reputation as “the Pink Floyd of shoegaze” immediately clicked for me. If you want to listen to something that you have never heard the like of before (and of course you do, who wouldn’t!), then you NEED to listen to “Bell Gardens”, and in fact listen to the whole EP “Stray Honey” to enjoy this whole experience.