Thank have just released the final teaser from their upcoming second album, I Have A Physical Body That Can Be Harmed, out on November 8th via Big Scary Monsters. Their latest satirical single, “Woke Frasier,” is out today.
As is typical for Thank, “Woke Frasier” delivers sharp, witty social commentary. The track holds up a mirror to the all-too-familiar figures who eagerly label anything they disagree with as “woke.”
Side-splitting, tongue-in-cheek lyrics such as: “Bad news, your credit card details are now woke / and you should send them to me for safe disposal” have already evoked some polarising responses while road testing the track as vocalist Freddy Vinehill-Cliffe explains: “Woke Frasier is written from the perspective of a right wing grifter podcast host. When we played this in Bedford someone got mad at me because they thought it was about Joe Rogan, it isn’t about Joe Rogan but also fuck Joe Rogan. Woke Simpsons was a close second choice for the name of this song, and it features our friend Robin Smith from Lo Egin on sax.”
Facetious songs about unsavoury characters are something of a speciality for the Leeds outfit, as seen on their debut album Thoughtless Cruelty through the lens of “Dread” a song about inattentive landlords and sales pitch letting agents. As Vinehill-Cliffe puts it, “I don’t think I’m necessarily trying to say anything I haven’t tried to say before, I’ve just gotten better at saying it.” He continues: “I still hate landlords, I still hate right wing grifters, I still hate people who hide their cruelty behind progressive language. I do hate myself quite a bit less, so there’s some hope and positivity in there too, as a treat.”
Freddy Vinehill-Cliffe further elaborates: “Musically this one is primarily a Lewis composition, I think he has set himself the goal of making us sound gradually, subtly like a guitar version of British Murder Boys, almost undetectable until five years from now when I wake up one morning and all our instruments have been replaced by analog hardware. He thinks he’s slick, he thinks I don’t know, but I know.”
Thank, along with the release of “Woke Frasier” have also brought in a former collaborator of theirs, George Chadwick for the song’s absurdist music video. Speaking on the video the band said: “You can think of this as a sort of sequel to the ‘Torture Cube’ video, also by George Chadwick. The brief we gave him was to make something centred around right wing podcast grifters, with as many daft references to The Simpsons and Frasier as he felt like including. Also the entire narrative must take place inside a broken desktop computer. I think we can all agree that George has truly delivered this and more. Who can say whether or not Rodney Fipplecash will make further appearances within the Thank cinematic universe? Only time will tell.”
Pre-order I Have A Physical Body That Can Be Harmed HERE