Squid

Today, February 7, 2025 (by some calendars, lol) is a red-letter day for fans of British post-punk as today marks the release of Squid's third LP, Cowards. Whatever else you're doing right now, stop it and go listen to this album. Extra credit: buy the fucking thing.

Squid have been releasing challenging and interesting music for at least five years now, beginning with 2019's Town Centre EP and their two excellent previous LPs, Bright Green Field and O Monolith. Their music is always full of surprises and one never knows quite what's going to happen next, from track to track and even within the songs themselves, and one can expect to hear something new, something not previously noticed, on repeated listens. Brilliant stuff, just truly brilliant.    

"Frank's my friend." Are they referencing Blue Velvet's Frank Booth? Frank the Rabbit from Donnie Darko? Or Anne, subject of the recent book, My Friend Anne Frank? My guess is Booth, as the song points out that "there’s murder sometimes, but he’s a real nice guy," and describes him as "no true American" (Dennis Hopper also starred in the film, The American Friend). Whichever, it hints at some dark subtexts to an album described by the band themselves as "a book of dark fairytales." 

My tastes in music may have evolved over the decades from the acid-drenched Third Stone From the Sun to the carefully curated free jazz of Sylvie Courvoisier, but I'm still eclectic enough to have room left over in my heart for shit like this.