The countdown is on! Swansea glam-indie-new-wavers, BANDICOOT’s long-awaited album, Black After Dark, is out on Libertino Records on Fri 4 March 2022 and the first stepping-stone on the route to the year’s most dizzying debut is a remarkable, live video version of the literary-glam, glitter-pop gem, FUZZY. The plugged-in version is released to celebrate the limited vinyl release of the single, cut from a sparking new studio master and backed with freshly cut B-side, Monster.

Bandicoot’s high-sheen drama, part-70’s tank-tops and sideburns floor-fillers and part-eyebrow-arching indie-janglers, distils and catches light spectacularly in any live venue. FUZZY’s live-version release, following acclaim for the studio-borne single, celebrates the four-piece’s commitment to, and reputation for burning down the house.

Having also released the Bowie-styled, existential opera of Life Death And Other Things and tumbling art-rock of Worried Blues since linking with Libertino last year, it’s Monster that now appears on Bandicoot’s songbook as the very latest cut. With a shade less bombast, but as many loops, turns and tight corners, every beat brings bracing reward.

Razor-tongued man of words and melody, leading from the front, Tom Emlyn says of the new track:

“‘Monster’ began as a circus sideshow, a hall of mirrors roll-call of carnival barkers, three-headed babies and bearded ladies. It made me think about the ways that society demonises those it imagines to be different. Somewhere between the first and second draft it morphed to cast light on the mundane, and the song became more subtle; fragmentary images of ill-spent evenings, haunted by the spectre of the everyday.”

Bandicoot’s expansive, 13-track album, Black After Dark, promises an electrifying leap into the wide-range of Bandicoot’s thematic and genre-bending explorations and experiments, bringing hair-raising, wiry post-punk into close contact with expansive, pause-and-reflect alt-rock and clear-cut, lyric-forward dancefloor indie. Inspired equally by the Plastic Ono Band as Velvet Underground and CAN, the shadow-cast streets of Swansea have given rise to one of the UK’s most colourful bands.

Taking that rainbow of rock and roll out internationally throughout 2022, Bandicoot have confirmed the following live venue and festival dates for the coming months.

Thu 17 – Sun 20 Feb: Norrköping, Sweden, Future Echoes
Tue 1 Mar: London, Roundhouse
Sat 5 Mar: Cardiff, Clwb Ifor Bach
Sun 13 – Sun 20 Mar: Austin, Texas, SXSW
Sat 26 Mar: Laugharne, Laugharne Weekend Festival,
Fri 8 April: London, The Fiddler
Sat 16- Sun 17 April: Newport, Big Sesh
Thu 5- Sat 7 May: Wrexham, Focus Wales

Bandicoot are Rhys Underdown (guitar, vocals, saxophone and keyboards), Billy Stillman (drums), Tom Emlyn (vocals, guitar and keyboards) and Keiran Doe (bass).