If you haven’t been paying attention, Australia has a brand new Prime Minister. Malcolm Turnbull gave the reviled Tony Abbott the boot and people have generally been reacting to the news with excitement and mirth – musicians are no exception.
Earlier today, we reported on Until Abbott Gets Gone, the Sydney punk band who promised to keep releasing anti-Abbott songs until he leaves office. They recently confirmed that with the egress of old Tone, they would indeed be disbanding.
Meanwhile, Blacktown deathcore outfit Thy Art Is Murder have decided to take a different route, celebrating Abbott’s departure by unveiling a brutal new merchandise T-shirt, which features a graphic of Abbott bleeding from the eyes and the words ‘Bitch You’re Dead’ running across his head.
The band took to Facebook to inform fans of their latest merch release with the immortal words, “Australians all let us rejoice.” According to the band’s Facebook post, the shirts are available until the end of the month and you can pick them up for $25 right here.
The band have certainly been courting controversy in 2015. In April, they ran afoul of distributors and retailers after circulating the uncensored artwork for their latest album, Holy War, which depicts a small child with an explosive device strapped to their torso.
Image via 24Hundred
“Unfortunately after circulating our intended album cover around to the distributors and retailers, and after several meetings with the label and those we all work with, we were told we would have to cover the image, or choose a different cover,” the band wrote at the time.
The group followed up the cover with an incendiary music video for the LP’s title track, which featured numerous visual references to religious extremism, including a child-aged suicide bomber and a man dressed in the style of an Islamist militant performing a beheading.
Most recently, the band issued an apology to their US fans after Disney barred them from performing in “Anaheim on October 30th and Orlando Lake Buena Vista on November 23rd”. Both dates were scheduled to take place at House of Blues venues, a chain owned by Disney.
