Song of the Day: A Giant Dog - Sleep When Dead

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Afternoon Show with Kevin Cole, is “Sleep When Dead” by A Giant Dog from their 2016 album, Pile, on Merge Records.

A Giant Dog - Sleep When Dead (MP3)

A lot of garage rock bands use their buzzsaw guitars to soundtrack basement parties but Austin, Texas' A Giant Dog use their tuneful clatter to outright ensure that someone is going to call the cops. Formed in 2008 by singer Sabrina Ellis, guitarist Andrew Cashen, and drummer Orville Neeley, the trio were joined in making lager-soaked glam punk by bassist Graham Low and guitarist Andy Bauer in the Texan capital ahead of their 2012 debut, the brilliantly-titled Fight. The endorsement of fellow Austinite Britt Daniel paved the way for a full tour with Spoon and a connection with producer Mike McCarthy, who would produce the band's third album and Merge Records debut, this year's Pile. Gloriously raucous with a touch of glammed-up style, "Sleep When Dead" could easily function as the album's mission statement, a dual-guitar burner that (thankfully) doesn't stop to think about the consequences of its punk fury until the morning after. Hinting at the spectre of the (non) life after the party, the tune is just a little apocalyptic in its chaotic catharsis, but the band never sound like they're having anything but the time of their lives as they turn their amps up to 11 outside death's door at three in the morning, and that's precisely what makes the two-and-a-half minutes of joyful noise so thrilling.

A Giant Dog will play a string of East Coast shows this summer, and if they announce plans to tour out West, that news will be on their Facebook and website. Below, watch the video for "Sleep When Dead".