cowboyy share the single melancholy (chain) from the EP revocder

cowboyy have released melancholy (chain), the second single from an EP the South Coast trio have coming, and it is the newest song on a record largely written three or four years ago. revocder arrives on 25 September through Big Scary Monsters.

The song is about parting ways, in several forms at once: relationships ending, friendships finishing, what the band called a death to love. It went by a different name for years. The band were playing it live in 2024 as chain to pain, and the change to melancholy (chain) came about for a reason with nothing to do with meaning: there were too many songs on the record starting with the letter c.

The opening riff, played by Kai Smith, has a pull that sits closer to early 2000s pop punk than to anything on their debut, before the song bends back towards the math rock the band are known for. Guitarist and songwriter Stan Powell said that was deliberate. "I just wanted to write something that was personally like a throwback to stuff that I used to write when I was younger," he said.

The vocal is a departure too. Powell traced his new approach to the Irish showband The Dixies, saying he wanted more power behind the vocal than the spoken word delivery the band used on their earlier EP.

He also pointed away from his own parts when asked what to listen for. Powell singled out the guitar and pedal work, then went further and named Dan Haysom's drumming, which he said is genuinely difficult and likely to be overlooked because the song sounds poppier than it is.

The band's debut EP, Epic The Movie, made an impression in 2023, and revocder is a nine track follow-up drawing mostly on writing from 2022 and 2023. Powell said melancholy (chain), as the newest thing on it, leans towards where the band go after the EP rather than where they have been.

revocder is out on 25 September, and it sits with the autumn's other indie and rock releases on the release calendar.