Australian hardcore heavyweights Outright have lifted the lid on their long-awaited forthcoming LP Keep You Warm, due Friday 15 July via their long-running band-owned label, Rage and Reason Records, and have shared the album's scorching first single ‘The Hammer’.
A breakneck thrash number and a potent serve of seething political dissent from one of Australian hardcore’s most vital voices, ‘The Hammer’ sees songwriter and frontwoman Jelena Goluza challenging the perpetually privileged who view the expectation of taking personal accountability as a direct attack.
According to Goluza, ‘The Hammer’ is a tongue in cheek song emerging from frustration at recognising an abuser’s tendency to lament when being held to account, and references Malleus Maleficarum - ‘The Hammer of Witches’ – a text widely acknowledged as the almanac of witchcraft.
“When abusers co-opt the histories of the oppressed to complain about their own rare instances of accountability it insults and minimises literally hundreds of years of survival and resilience by the marginalised,” Goluza says. “When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression and accountability feels like an attack.
“The song title refers to Malleus Maleficarum, ‘The Hammer of Witches’ – a historical text considered the handbook on witchcraft which drove centuries of torture and hysteria to protect the power of the church and its patriarchy,” she adds. “We subvert it here to be a hammer of justice for all.
“We have to believe in change. Cancel culture might not be the solution, but you can't equate visibility and accountability for harm with a witch hunt - the very tool used by these same abusers to murder, exclude and control people who challenge the status quo, show strength and independence or literally just dare to exist”.
An act globally renowned for its fierce moral code, feminist ethics and community spirit, Outright’s eagerly awaited new LP follows the band’s oeuvre of penning songs packed with nuanced lyrics and powerful declarations.
Preorder here: https://reasonandrage.bigcartel.com/