RVG have spoiled fans with the release of not one but two new tracks.
“Don’t Take It Badly / Pet Seminary” is the post-punk band’s first new music of the year, and their first since their 2023 Soundmerch Australian Music Prize-winning album, Brain Worms.
“Don’t Take It Badly” finds RVG in jangly territory, with the band’s singer Romy Vager explaining the track “is a song about how change isn’t always a romantic thing and can sometimes feel pretty ugly. It’s a winter song that I wrote in the summer.”
“Pet Sematary,” meanwhile, was born out of the band’s love of The Ramones.
“We all love the Ramones and started playing this in rehearsal and it instantly clicked. The lyrics are such an underrated part of Ramones’ songs, there’s a lot of imagery in this song that I love dearly,” Vager says.
Listen to both “Don’t Take It Badly” and “Pet Sematary” below.
The two tracks arrive ahead of RVG’s visit to Europe and the UK for their first international of the year. Beginning at The Lexington in London next week, their tour will then take them to Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, Birmingham, and more towns and cities, as well as festivals like End of the Road and Hop Pop Hop.
RVG’s most recent album didn’t just win the Australian Music Prize in 2023. Brain Worms also earned the Melbourne outfit the award for Independent Album of the Year at the AIR Awards. The album was also nominated four times at the Music Victoria Awards.
Brain Worms followed 2020’s acclaimed Feral (“RVG have crafted the record of a lifetime with Feral,” hailed Rolling Stone AU/NZ), which itself followed the band’s equally excellent debut album, 2017’s A Quality of Mercy.
RVG’s “Don’t Take It Badly / Pet Sematary” is out now via Fire Records and Mushroom Music.
