Dearly Beloved Share Cover Of DEVO's 'Explosions'

Toronto barrage rock sextet Dearly Beloved have released their take on DEVO's "Explosions," featured on their upcoming new album Walker Park, due out January 24, 2023 on Sonic Unyon Records. The band premiered a video for the track via Spill Magazine. Pre-save Walker Park here.

Discussing their cover of "Explosions," songwriter/producer/bassist Rob Higgins noted, "'Explosions' was the last thing we did together all in the same room at the same time. We recorded it in Toronto at my home studio, Phoebe Street, right before we were about to leave for six weeks overseas opening for Sebadoh. The tour was eventually scrapped because of COVID and after recording this cover we all went our separate ways, not knowing it would be two and a half years until our next hang."

The follow up to 2019's Time Square Discount, which was written entirely while on the road and recorded in a two-week blitz with Daniel Rey at Dave Grohl's Studio 606, Walker Park took shape while Higgins was writing and recording at home, in his Phoebe Street studio, to cope with the pandemic.

While brutal for all, the lockdown provided a never before experienced freedom to work patiently and use the studio as an instrument itself, eventually mixing the album with bandmate and Slow Pineapple production partner Tyler Beans.

The sessions delivered thematic ambition, sonic verve, and evocative playing in spades, while never skimping on the scorched-earth riffs Dearly Beloved have become known for. The work and craft that went into the album conveys the deeply weird world in which it was spawned - "Listening back now, the record appears to reflect the absurdity of those times," notes Higgins.

For the past 16 years, the Beloved's collision and fusion of pop and hardcore sensibilities, melody and menace, has offered up unabashed stoner rock coiled like smoke around a magma core of psychedelic post-grunge. Walker Park anchors itself in the lessons learned and launches the band on an exciting new trajectory.

"The songs started as super long bass and drum jams I built myself at home," explains Higgins. "I'd play for like 15 minutes and record it all. Then I'd go looking for good bits. Once whittled into a form I'd send the song to the band to freak out on." Of the 16 finished tracks arising from those sessions, 10 eventually coalesced as Walker Park, with songs selected to reflect the zeitgeist in a cohesive way while also communicating a narrative arc.

A sweaty, noisy mix of rock n' roll, hardcore, punk, prog, psych, and sludge influences, Dearly Beloved lives to make records and tour. The band has racked up an impressive resumé as road dogs, supporting artists like Swervedrive, Juliette Lewis and the Licks and Sloan on national tours of Canada, the U.S. and UK, while collaborating with riff wizards like Dave Catching (Queens of the Stone Age), Chris Gross (Masters of Reality), Patrick Pentland (Sloan), Dave Elitch (The Mars Volta), Dimitri Coates (OFF!, Burning Brides), and Care Failure (Die Mannequin). With extensive global dates in the works for 2023, Dearly Beloved's rock-solid rep is sure to stand tall in the spotlight with the release of Walker Park.

Watch the new music video here:

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