Squid are back with a new album. Cowards, the follow-up to their second album, O Monolith, arrives February 7, 2025, via Warp. It comes with a video for “Crispy Skin,” from Takashi Ito, adapted from his 1995 short film Zone. Check that out below.
Contributors to the LP include Clarissa Connelly, Tony Njoku, Pozi’s Rosa Brook, percussionist Zands Duggan, and the Ruisi Quartet. Marta Salogni and Grace Banks produced the LP alongside the band and Dan Carey. Before heading out on a European tour behind the record—find those dates below—the band plays a sold-out New York show tonight.
“Crispy Skin,” Ollie Judge said in a press release, “was lyrically inspired by a dystopian novel Tender Is The Flesh I read where cannibalism becomes the societal norm and humans are manufactured and sold in supermarkets. I think when most people read books like these they picture themselves as the sort of person that would take the moral high-ground within these narratives. The track was written about how the reality of having a moral-compass in these stories of desperation and horror would be extremely difficult.” He added, “If I was actually in that world, I probably would be the coward in this instance.”
Ito called the video “a film about a man without a face. His arms and legs bound with ropes, still without even a quiver in a white room. This man, enwrapped in wild delusions, is also a reconstruction of myself. A series of unusual scenes in this room that expresses what lies inside me. I tried to create a connection between memories, nightmares and violent images.”
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Cowards:
01 Crispy Skin02 Building 65003 Blood on the Boulders04 Fieldworks I05 Fieldworks II06 Cro-Magnon Man07 Cowards08 Showtime!09 Well Met (Fingers Through the Fence)
Squid:
11-12 New York, NY – Drom02-17 Liverpool, England – Invisible Wind Factory02-18 Manchester, England – O2 Ritz Manchester02-19 Glasgow, Scotland – Old Fruitmarket02-21 Newcastle, England – NSU Domain02-22 Sheffield, England – Leadmill02-24 Cambridge, England – Junction 102-25 Norwich, England – The Adrian Flux Waterfront02-27 Oxford, England – O2 Academy Oxford02-28 Southampton, England – Engine Rooms03-01 Margate, England – Lido03-02 Brighton, England – Chalk03-04 Birmingham, England – XOYO Birmingham03-05 Bristol, England – Bristol Beacon04-09 Paris, France – Cabaret Sauvage04-10 Cologne, Germany – Club Volta04-11 Dresden, Germany – Polimagie Festival04-12 Berlin, Germany – Lido04-14 Schorndorf, Germany – Manufaktur04-15 Amsterdam, Netherlands – Melkweg04-16 Antwerp, Belgium – Trix04-18 Rotterdam, Netherlands – Motel Mozaique Festival04-19 Nijmegen, Netherlands – Doornroosje04-26 London, England – Roundhouse
