New York noisemongers A Place To Bury Strangers are as aggressively noisy as ever on their feedback-drenched new single Bad Idea.

Sometimes you want a song to soothe you into a calm space. Other times you want one to make you get up and dance. And then there are songs like this – songs that cleanse your entire mind.

A Place To Bury Strangers enjoy being known as “the loudest band in New York” and live up to the claim on their feedback-drenched new album (and, to be fair all their previous ones). They make those early Jesus & Mary Chain records sound like Perry Como.

If you think it sounds chaotic and messy and noisy, then you’re right – and that’s exactly what it’s supposed to sound like.

It’s not a great surprise to learn that this song, Bad Idea, grew out of a spontaneous studio collaboration between the band’s three members, frontman / guitarist Oliver Ackerman, bassist John Fedowitz and drummer Sandra Fedowitz.

Video director Nick Kulp observed the slow development of their new album Synthesizer while doing the band’s visuals and lighting on tour since 2022, and says he was immediately hooked by this song when they debuted it last year.

“It’s one of those live songs that really just takes you along for the ride and is really fun to do visuals and lights for. I tried my best to capture as much of the chaos of seeing the band live that I could — it’s an intense journey!”

I’ll bet it is. I was hoping to see them play the Shacklewell Arms last week but in the end my brain was not quite ready for the full-scale assault before an early start the next morning. But I’m still sad to have missed them.

And I’m looking forward to the album, out next week.