Aqualine turn self-frustration into the new single Stupid Brain

Aqualine have shared a new single called Stupid Brain, a loud, jittery piece of guitar pop that the five-piece produced themselves. Band members Patrick Keena and Ben Skwarski took charge of production.

The group split their base between Guildford and Brighton and have built a reputation on a punchy live show. Clash hears the Pixies in places, along with contemporaries such as Fontaines D.C., and describes a band that keeps moving outward with each single.

They call the song an anthem of self-frustration. In their own words it captures being stuck in a cycle of repetitive mistakes and insecurity, and feeling spat out into adulthood before you were ready, with the internal voice absurd enough to laugh at.

That reading shapes how the song is built. The repetitive chorus stands in for the loop of toxic thoughts, the stabbing chords carry the internal chaos, and the delivery is deliberately blunt and childlike, closer to a tantrum than a confession.

The band named their references without hedging: Fontaines D.C.'s Romance, Pixies, Nirvana, Sonic Youth and Radiohead. The song does not stay in that groove, though, taking a few turns before arriving at an outro they describe as pointing toward acceptance and a little self-compassion.

Stupid Brain is logged on the release calendar. Aqualine's touchstones are all over current rock, and one of them has just booked arenas: Fontaines D.C. announced a European arena tour for the autumn.