Squid are back with a new album. cowardsthe follow-up to their second album, The Monolitharrives on February 7, 2025, via Warp. Comes with a video for “Crispy Skin”, by Takashi Ito, adapted from the 1995 short film Zone. Check it out below.
LP contributors include Clarissa Connelly, Tony Njoku, Pozi's Rosa Brook, percussionist Zands Duggan and the Ruisi Quartet. Marta Salogni and Grace Banks produced the LP alongside the band and Dan Carey. Before embarking on a European tour behind the record – find those dates below – the band play a sold-out show in New York tonight.
'Crispy Skin,' Ollie Judge said in a press release, 'is lyrically inspired by a dystopian novel Tender Is The Flesh I read where cannibalism becomes the social norm and people are manufactured and sold in supermarkets. I think when most people read books like these they imagine themselves as the kind of person who would take the moral high ground in these narratives. The piece was written about how the reality of having a moral compass in these stories of despair and horror would be extremely difficult.” He added, “If I were really in this world, I'd probably be the coward in this case.”
Ito called the video “a film about a man without a face. His hands and feet tied with ropes, without even a quiver in a white room. This man, wrapped in wild delusions, is also a reconstruction of myself. A series of unusual scenes in this room that expresses what is hidden inside me. I tried to create a connection between memories, nightmares and violent images.”
All products featured on Pitchfork are independently selected by our editors. However, when you purchase something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
cowards:
01 Crispy skin
02 Building 650
03 Blood on the Boulders
04 Fieldwork I
05 Fieldwork II
06 Cro-Magnon Man
07 cowards
08 Show time!
09 Well Met (Fingers Through the Fence)
Squid:
11-12 New York, New York – Drom
02-17 Liverpool, England – Invisible Wind Factory
02-18 Manchester, England – O2 Ritz Manchester
02-19 Glasgow, Scotland – Old Fruitmarket
02-21 Newcastle, England – NSU Domain
02-22 Sheffield, England – Leadmill
02-24 Cambridge, England – Junction 1
02-25 Norwich, England – The Adrian Flux Waterfront
02-27 Oxford, England – O2 Academy Oxford
02-28 Southampton, England – Engine Houses
03-01 Margate, England – Lido
03-02 Brighton, England – Chalk
03-04 Birmingham, England – XOYO Birmingham
03-05 Bristol, England – Bristol Beacon
04-09 Paris, France – Cabaret Sauvage
04-10 Cologne, Germany – Club Volta
04-11 Dresden, Germany – Polimagie Festival
04-12 Berlin, Germany – Lido
04-14 Schorndorf, Germany – Manufaktur
04-15 Amsterdam, Netherlands – Melkweg
04-16 Antwerp, Belgium – Trix
04-18 Rotterdam, Netherlands – Motel Mozaique Festival
04-19 Nijmegen, Netherlands – Doornroosje
04-26 London, England – Roundhouse
